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PAGES FROM 
A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 




THE BEAUTY OF THE PERPENDICULAR 



PAGES FRO 
A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 



BY 
MRS. FRANCIS KING 

AUTHOR OF " THE WELL-CONSIDERED GARDEN ' 



ILLUSTRATED 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
NEW YORK :: :: :: MCMXXI 



op 



CoPTBionr, 1921, bt 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published May, 1921 



Copyright 1917, 1920, 1921 by Condd Nast & Co., Inc. 



MAY 28 1921 



THE SCRIBNER PREM 



Q)QlA6i7136 



TO 

THE BRIGHT MEMORY OP 

F. K. R. AND H. L. R. 

AND 
THEIR LITTLE GARDEN 



From Anton Tchekhov's Note-Book: 

* A conversation on another planet about the earth a thousand 

years hence: "Do you remember that white tree '" 

— "The London Mercury," January, 1921. 

What, O Man, shall God remember when the world of men is cold ? 
All the anguish, all the violence, that have wracked it from of old ? 

Be you not too sure; for haply when the troublers yet to come 
Like the dreaded Roman legions or the Tartar hordes are dumb, 

God shall see an ancient hill-top where an unremembered boy 
Laughed because the earth was lovely and to live and breathe was 
joy. — "The Scales" by Cliffobd Bax, from 

"A House of Words." 

(By permission of Basil Blackwell, publisher.) 



NOTE 

To Professor Sargent for permission to repub- 
lish the article on the Arnold Arboretum; to the 
editors of "House and Garden," "The House 
Beautiful," and "The Spur" for their willingness 
to let me use again various articles written for 
them; to the kind owner of the "Hidden Garden" 
and to Messrs. Hicks, of Westbury, Long Island, 
for the including of that garden's plan, I offer very 
sincere thanks. To the Garden Club, of New 
Canaan, and to Mrs. William H. Cary, whose 
lively warnings follow the chapter "How to Form 
a Garden Club," I am indebted for leave to print 
the latter's "Don'ts." Miss Mildred Howells has 
been so good as to allow the reappearance of 
her gay and charming stanzas on the seed cata- 
logue, and Miss Isabella Pendleton has kindly 
permitted the printing here of her interesting 
color-chart for flowers on page 103. Without the 
help of Miss Kate O. Sessions of San Diego, the 
description of the California planting would have 
lost much value; and to the many friends — 

especially, to the Misses Smith of Four Pines, 

vii 



NOTE 

Penllyn, near Philadelphia — whose generosity has 
enabled me to describe or to refer to their gardens, 
or whose agricultural knowledge has been placed 
at my disposal, I make grateful acknowledgment. 
There is, however, one other matter to commend 
this book. It will be found at the head of each 
chapter in those sparkling sentences from the 
letters of Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford. 
Played upon by this fountain of wit the least 
significant notes on gardening, as through re- 
fracted rays, may perhaps glisten a very little. 

Louisa Yeomans King. 

Orchard House, 
Alma, Michigan, 
April, 1921. 



VIU 



CONTENTS 

CHAFTEB PAOS 

I. Pages from a Garden Note-Book ... 1 

II. Lilacs and Other Spring Flowers . . 27 

III. Tulip Time in the Garden 39 

IV. An English Garden in Spring .... 53 
V. Summer Thoughts in Winter .... 69 

VI. Earlier Flowers 83 

VII. Later Flowers 105 

VIII. Other Flowers 125 

IX. Bright-Berried Growth for the Winter 

Garden 147 

X. The Arnold Arboretum : A National Treas- 
ure 167 

XI. Spanish Gardens and a California Planting 185 

XII. A Review OF THE American Seed Catalogue 211 

XIII. On Forming a Garden Club 235 

XIV. Vocations FOR Women in Agriculture . 257 

Index . . ... . •. 283 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Beauty of the Perpendicular Frontispiece'' 

FACrNG PAGE 

The Little Platform Q- 

Lilacs, Myosotis and Tulip " Innovation " 36 

Tulips in a Pennsylvania Garden 44 '-'''' 

Fountain in a Pennsylvania Garden 44 ''^ 

Mathern Palace: The Old Quadrangle BQ" 

Mathern Palace: Tulips and Myosotis 58 

Mathern Palace: The Grass Alley 58 

Tree, Arch, and Flower 90 

Phlox, Tapis Blanc, and Lilium Regale 110- ' 

Pink and Lavender Phloxes 114 ^ 

Artemisia Lactiflora with Lycoris 116^" 

A Garland of Clematis 142''^ 

A Myrtle-Bordered Pool 152 

Planting List for a Winter Garden -page 162 

Planting Plan for Hidden Garden page 163 

Lilacs in the Arnold Arboretum, Boston 176 

A Sub-Tropical Garden at Coronado 198 

New Zealand Flax in a Coronado Garden 202 " 

Artemisia Lactiflora with Pink Poppy 246 



%\ 



PAGES FROM A GARDEN 
NOTE-BOOK 



Drowned as we are, the country never was in such 
beauty; the herbage and leafage are luxurious. The 
Thames gives itself Rhone airs, and almost foams; it is 
none of your home-brewed rivers that Mr. Brown makes 
with a spade and a watering-pot. 

— Horace Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossoby, 
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 31, 1782. 



PAGES FROM A GARDEN 
NOTE-BOOK 

TO the eye of the gardener snow is no winding- 
sheet, none of the covering of death; it is 
the warm wrapping mantle of beauty asleep. Be- 
neath the whiteness He endless radiances of color, 
wonders untold in flower, plant, tree. How can 
those who do not garden, who have no part nor 
lot in the great fraternity of those who watch the 
changing year as it affects earth and its growth, 
how can they keep warm their hearts in winter? 
They are as those who have no hope. A winter 
day of the coldest may glow and shine with 
thoughts of summer, but always provision must 
have been made for that summer, by burying the 
bulbs, by covering the rosettes of the Canterbury 
bell or the cut stalks which mark the delphinium 
root's portion of the garden. These things prop- 
erly accomplished, the fancy may happily dwell 
in winter upon the rosy tulip, the golden daffodil, 
the campanula's full round bells. 

And then the first signs of spring, those days 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

in mid-January when daylight lasts an hour longer 
than in December; that blue of the January sky 
which hints, intangibly hints, of bluer skies to 
come, the warmer sun. On such days I venture 
forth into a snow-covered garden, look carefully 
over shrubs and trees here and there, scrape the 
bark of a rose or thorn, hoping to find beneath that 
faithful strip of green, the proof of life and strength. 
So walking, I come to a spot which, almost hidden 
by snow, is a source of warm delight; and it is 
only the mind that makes it so, the memory 
and the imagination. On a hot August day of 
last year I suddenly realized that a pair of Cox's 
Orange Pippin trees flanking the entrance of the 
main garden to the grassy slopes of the orchard 
were really grown. They cast full-grown shadows. 
At once chairs were brought and a garden tea- 
table, and the true enjoyment of those trees 
began. Two garden benches then were set along 
the edges of the gravel walk, just within the gar- 
den, and also beneath the Pippin's shade. The 
popularity of this sitting-place was at once estab- 
lished. Where the two chairs stood, just outside 
the garden, they were backed by tall lilacs growing 
almost under the young apples, by SpircBa Thun- 
bergii and by a few deutzias, well grown. But now 

4 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

the frequent occupation of those chairs began to 
leave its mark upon the grass, worn spots appeared, 
and as I considered a remedy for this an experi- 
ment flashed to mind. Why not, said I, take the 
note from the small brick sill which marked the 
ending of gravel walk and the beginning of grass 
— why not lay a little platform of brick below the 
chairs ? Then why not give this platform a little 
design? Two large deutzias were then taken out 
to make more room, the apple boughs lifted a 
little and tied into position by means of heavy 
twine, with lengths of old garden hose around the 
bough itself, and a fan-shaped space lay below to 
be paved. 

The line was carefully marked — the flat side of 
the open fan next the garden, the curve outside 
toward the lawn, the brick laid herring-bone in 
sand; at once the tree shadows found a lovely 
background for themselves in the warm tones of 
the brick, and then a little decorative planting 
suggested itself. Six plants of Evonymus vegetus, 
lusty and shining, were brought from a border, 
where they were really wasting themselves, and 
set around the curves of the platform to be staked 
and trained as a low evergreen hedge perhaps a 
foot high. Below this, and close to the edge of 

5 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

the brick, also only against the curves, we placed 
a narrow line of Iris pumila, the deep violet one. 
Beyond this little platform I shook out bag after 
bag of bulbs of daffodil, and tulip Orange King, 
for a spring picture, to be seen stretching away from 
this little new place. Puschkinia is already nat- 
uralized there; tulip Kaufmanniana gives an early 
glow to the earth below the lilacs; and now and 
again a cluster of species tulips, the remnant of 
generous plantings of years gone by — Clusiana, 
Greigii, viridiflora — make their own interest, too. 
I leave the reader to judge if snow can cool the 
prospect of the spring when one has managed to 
plan just one small meeting-place like this. It 
should be really poetic; but one can hardly plan 
for poetry — that happens or not. A little focal 
point for friends to use among flowers — that must 
result in something happy. This reminds me of 
one of the most charming invitations of my life, 
an invitation given in a California city, the words 
said in the sweetest of American voices, the voice 
of the South — "Come and see my daphnes." It 
has haunted me as a line of poetry will do. 

Who is not familiar with April cold' — that chill 
in the air which in our Northern States seems 
more unsuitable because of the marvels of color 

6 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

everywhere on the landscape — those mists of car- 
mine on the swamp dogwoods, that "mealy red- 
ness" of the elm blossom, the willow's golden 
clouds, all backed by distances of smoky blue and 
canopied by a clear blue sky. It is not when we 
are wrapped around by warmth that such pictures 
exist. They come into being through that force 
which only the spring knows. They compensate 
one for the cold winds and chilly airs of our April, 
which, as Horace Walpole said of May in England, 
comes in *'with its usual severity." Well wrapped 
against the weather, April has its peculiar plea- 
sures; here snowdrops and the earliest species cro- 
cuses have been gathered long since, and now we 
search the borders and not in vain. 

It is the 8th of May; the first green leaf of the 
year is everywhere. Do all gardeners rejoice as 
I do over the look of the garden as it is now.'* 
Not a flower in it, but grass edges have been 
trimmed, sod added where those edges have been 
overwhelmed last year by the spilling over of 
lavender, nepeta, ageratum, and other things 
which do their creeping out so softly but so surely. 
The grass is mowed; the beds of the garden culti- 
vated, by hand where lilies are supposed to be. 
Tufts and mounds of all shades of green appear 

7 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

above the fine smoothly tilled earth; these are the 
first growths of all the beauties of early and mid- 
summer in perennial flowers. All is in low relief, 
but in perfect order, an order which is enchanting 
because a living plan is spread out before one, 
drawn in dazzling green and rich purplish brown, 
with the surrounding hedges, shrubs, and trees 
picked out in their own first greens, from Norway 
maples' wondrous light yellow -green to the silvery 
leaves of shadbush. On the old apple-trees there 
are but pin-pricks of that sweetest of all greens, 
their leaf-buds. Puschkinias and crocuses are 
faint now, fading, and in unexpected places, under 
delicately leaved shrubs, daffodils come into their 
own. In one such spot to-day I found a colony 
of narcissus Ariadne in full bloom over a group of 
little mertensias of a much darker blue than 
virginica. This must be, I think, Mertensia lance- 
olata, very early; in the shadow, below shrubs, the 
flower is almost like a sapphire. An interesting 
flower this, about eight inches high with a deep 
rose-colored bud, the whole panicle of bloom much 
richer in color and effect than the commonly used 
lungwort of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia. 
But over the garden picture in late afternoon 
come the long rays of a brilliant spring sun; then 

8 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

the pattern stands out as almost too dazzling; 
then beyond the garden the blue-greens of bush 
honeysuckles against the black-green of pine and 
hemlock in the shadow show the beholder one of 
the glorious moments of this lovely month. 

'Oh gallant, flowering May! 
Which month is painter of the world. 
As some old clerks do say.' 

Some years ago were given me a few roots of the 
old single white fragrant violet. By clearing out 
space for this darling of the spring we now have 
several little colonies in open ground below lilacs, 
and nothing is more valued or more welcome 
than this small, old-fashioned flower. It seems as 
though no florists' violet could compare with it in 
scent, so rarely sweet it is, and the groups of little 
flowers are like a tiny milky way upon the ground 
when their time is ripe for bloom. Hyacinths now 
are to the fore, also; of these I have not many, but 
Oranjeboven, running in and out of that pale 
crocus Scipio is very nice, pale coral and pale lav- 
ender; and while we are on crocuses, Scipio, again 
threading its way between the very pale lemon 
green leaves of Hemerocallis Florham is a charming 
sight. The delicate tones of crocus and lily foliage 
prove excellently related. Other hyacinths are 

9 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Grand Maltre, in streams of rich, and lusty violet 
bloom, with daffodils of various names, chiefly 
Katherine Spurrell, blooming thickly all about. 
There is here a very simple but very nice com- 
bination of flowers, one which the smallest of 
gardens might afford and which the garden's 
owner would be certain to enjoy. 

It is some of the older, cheaper sorts of daffo- 
dils, however, that if I could I should buy by 
the thousand to set hyacinths streaming through 
them in color combinations to charm the most 
indifferent eye. It is Katherine Spurrell, Mme. 
de Graff, Ariadne, Flora Wilson — and with these 
the six hyacinths with which we have tried this 
spring a very successful experiment, a group of 
colors from deepest violet to *' lavender-blue, 
touched corn-flower blue." The hyacinths are 
these: Count Andrassy, Enchantress, General van 
der Heyden, Grand Maitre, King of the Blues, 
Schotel. Fifty of each were set in long, loose 
groups among other loose groups of the daffodils, 
running down a slope beneath Japanese quince 
and cedar; this planting is only some sixty to 
seventy feet from the southeast corner of the 
house, and lies in and out of an almost invisible 
wire fence, and very near the sidewalk, for a dis- 

10 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

tance of about fifty feet. Many are the passers- 
by who have enjoyed this picture with us this 
year. We see them stopping to gaze. Motors 
go slowly by this spot, too, for this reach of flowers 
makes a bold and brilliant foreground for the 
gentle rise and fall of green lawns beyond, and in 
every light it is an expanse of fine color. The 
play of morning and late evening light is specially 
interesting on the rich violet flowers. 

I came in from the garden on May 16 with 
my small copper watering-pot — capacity about two 
quarts — filled with choice labelled daffodils, every 
one new to me this year. Of these most have 
graced tables in English shows for some years 
past, and some American amateurs have had them 
in their gardens for almost as long; but these of 
mine were bought lately, and it is an excitement 
of some intensity to watch the varieties as they 
open. Tresserve is a glorious clear yellow trum- 
pet of great size, a most conspicuous daffodil; 
Fiery Cross has the richest stain of orange rim- 
ming its yellow cup ; Great Warley, Miss Willmott, 
among the incomparabilis tribe, are very fine; Sir- 
dar is a magnificent flower. But the three out- 
standing ones to me are: Tresserve, Loveliness, 
and Salmonetta. Loveliness is a slender straw- 

11 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

colored trumpet of most beautiful form and color, 
perianth white, a flower one would notice any- 
where, and Salmonetta is a little poet of great 
distinction. As I was carrying my pot of trea- 
sures down the garden walk in the evening light, 
my eye fell upon a line of a dozen glorious tulips, 
the single early "Illuminator." This tulip is of 
a flaming orange, a superb flower. At once, I 
thought, I must hold my pot of daffodils near 
Illuminator and see which becomes it the best. 
Salmonetta' s wonderful orange cup won this dis- 
tinction for itself. Use this daffodil with tulip 
Illuminator, a carpet of single rock cress below 
and a backing of Spiroea Thunbergii now coming 
into bloom, and a smiling spring picture is created, 
a picture which upon a day of cloud and shower 
will have caught and held a sunlight of its own. 

No finer spring has ever dawned upon our small 
place than this of 1919; a cool, wet May until 
about the 26th, when, with sudden heat, waves 
and billows of bloom broke over the old bush 
honeysuckles and lilacs. There is nothing softer 
than the bloom of these Tartarian honeysuckles, 
the pink and the white, especially the latter, 
which, with the deep color of its fading flower, 
has a generally creamy appearance. The lilacs. 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

clouds of purple, mauve, and white, have drooped 
under their weight of color and scent, except those 
like Ludwig Spaeth, which have the stiff habit of 
trees whose newer stems are woody. Tulips have 
also shown what they could do, but under a hot 
sun their day of glory has been but a day. I have 
liked some fine groups of yellow tulips, raising 
themselves above the lavender phloxes of spring, 
Mrs. Moon, Avis Kennicott, Flava, Miss Willmott, 
Retrofiexa superba, all beauties among spring flow- 
ers. For a pink tulip there was a time when I 
thought Inglescombe pink the loveliest of all. I 
have now fixed this opinion upon the lovely cottage 
tulip, Mrs. Kerrell. Is there any one unapprecia- 
tive of the beauty of rose-color as it appears in the 
soft clusters of buds and flowers of Bechtel's 
double-flowering crab ? Let me say that this tulip, 
Mrs. Kerrell, blooming with me this spring below 
this crab-apple, is one of the sweetest of all May 
pictures. The relation of color is true; the rela- 
tion of form is a delightful contrast. The tulip is 
one of great elegance of form and, partly because 
I have it in half-shade, of fine lasting qualities. 
Twelve bulbs are all I own. I could wish this 
number multiplied by tens and hundreds if I had 
place for them. 

13 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Under a drooping apple bough I sit at twilight 
of the last day of May. Before me is a plant 
grouping of much variety and charm, and the air 
is filled with the fragrance of lilac and of lily- 
of-the-valley. The lilacs, now some twelve feet 
high, are in waves and billows of white, mauve, 
and purple bloom. Delicate whitish Persian lilacs 
are interspersed with those of French descent; the 
effect is a sumptuousness of bloom which can- 
not be surpassed. In what might be called a bay 
in these tall lilacs — a space some twelve feet 
wide and running back into the tall, blooming 
trees for, say, six feet — this arrangement occurs. 
Against the tall lilac-trees stands a young specimen 
of Syringa puhescens heavy with delicate lavender- 
white bloom. The bush is about five feet in 
height and stands on an almost solid carpet of 
forget-me-nots; before the lilacs are masses of 
bleeding-hearts in full flower, to the right Clara 
Butt tulips; in the foreground of all this a soft, 
round mass of ribbon-grass, with Clara Butt rising 
now again through this; to the left, and also in 
the foreground, tall forget-me-nots in a long blue 
drift ; and beyond these, lilies-of-the-valley, bloom- 
ing whitely to their tips against their stiff green 
leaves, "each one" — as a delightful EngHsh writer 

14 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

puts it — "each one tented in its little pavilion of 
green." The myosotis and the convallaria have 
naturalized themselves, run into each other, pink 
tulips and dicentra overhanging. 

As I sit on the little platform, of a June after- 
noon, looking through the tracery of apple-leaves 
to the bright garden beyond, I am struck by the 
vast improvement made this year by the introduc- 
tion of valerian in eight balanced spaces; especially 
bold and good is this because its silvery flowers 
rise beside spires equally tall of the purple Cam- 
panula ladiflora, also in full flower. Geranium 
grandiflorum' s low rounds of brilliant violet flowers 
form a lovely foreground from where I look, for 
these two taller subjects. This year I have the 
hardy campanula all over my garden. It is only 
three feet tall at present, due to fall moving, and 
next year it will probably exceed height limits — 
but for the present it is giving a most lovely effect. 
The clear-cut flowers, the fine pointed, upright 
buds, the uniform bright color of the flowers — 
these attributes make this perennial campanula 
valuable. Through a series of mishaps I have 
this year no Canterbury bells, but they are hardly 
missed, thanks to this vivid substitute from their 
own tribe. As Campanula lactiflora grows old, as 

15 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

it becomes established in its appointed place, there 
is a tendency to monotony of height in flower- 
stem. Then we have a more or less uninteresting 
barrel-like effect of bloom. The remedy for this 
is division and moving. 

It has suddenly burst upon my inner vision 
that the pale and bright pink climbing ramblers 
have no place together in my perennial garden, 
unless used, as they sometimes are most happily, 
tumbling over walls in great masses, near equally 
sumptuous masses of pale-blue delphiniums, with 
few or no other flowers to distract. The thing 
which brings me to the aforesaid unpleasant con- 
clusion is the present appearance of one of the 
gates of our garden. It is a dull-green wooden 
gate, with an upper arch and a solid door. The 
frame of the gate is of trellis, and to-day this trellis 
is completely smothered by, to the left, Excelsa, 
and, to the right. Lady Gay. Masses of these 
little round roses are blooming as the gentle cow 
gave milk in the nursery rhyme "with all their 
might." Below this arch of roses lies the little 
formal garden, with many things in bloom — del- 
phiniums dark and light, lilies, Shasta daisies, 
violet salvias and petunias, phloxes coming, and 
also gypsophila, and a few pale-pink dwarf ram- 

16 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

biers. The expanse of color on the gate-posts is out 
of place. It gives the look of the cover of a seed 
catalogue of about 1890. No, this is no place for 
my ramblers, fine though they are in themselves. 
I walk to the upper garden from this lower, turn 
to the left, where at each end of a short walk of 
brick hedged with clipped Spircea Vanhoutteii there 
are two of the same well-designed arches such as 
I have mentioned. These two are wreathed in 
pink ramblers. Lady Gay and Paradise; beyond 
this walk is not only smooth turf, but a fine growth 
of dwarf mountain pine, and it is here that the 
little rose comes into its own. It is seen only near 
and against green; or, as one looks at it from 
another angle, perhaps against the blue sky itself, 
where ramblers, like fruit-blossoms, are always 
seen at their loveliest. But the teaching here is 
that the rambler rose calls for a background of 
green, and of smooth, dark green, if possible 
clipped arbor-vitse, clipped spruce, or other rich- 
hued non -deciduous tree or hedge. In England it 
is, of course, the yew that encircles the loveliest 
rose-gardens. It is against that wall of green that 
the ropes and festoons of gay pink roses swing 
and smile. 

*It is delightful,' says Lady Eden, in "A Gar- 

17 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

den in Venice," 'to pick one's strawberries and cut 
one's tea-roses from the same bed.' This dehght 
is not reserved for Italy, but is our own experience 
in Michigan. Eighteen fine bushes of rose Los 
Angeles skirt our four rows of that luscious straw- 
berry, John H. Cook, than which, incidentally, a 
finer berry never grew to the proportions of a 
youthful tomato, or reddened to the color of one. 
The combination of the gathering and plucking of 
flowers and fruit from the same spot is irresistible. 
To look on lilies in the garden's green spaces, 
and as one looks to hear the sound of falling 
water, is an ecstacy in midsummer which is new, 
for these are not ordinary lilies — these are not 
the lovely candidum, or the gracefully hanging 
Nankeen lily, though both are in bloom now in 
my garden, in scattered groups. No, this is that 
glory of a lily whose noble adjective is regale, 
and I have it this year in profusion. I do not 
envy even the charming writer of "A Garden in 
Venice," as she describes her madonna lilies, often 
with eight to twenty flowers on one stalk and the 
stalk five feet high. Those virgin lilies have their 
own pure, pale beauty, and that beauty none will 
deny. The Nankeen lily has a quaint charm of 
form, habit, and color, too; so has L. Henryi, a 

18 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

vivid and graceful flower; so has L. elegans, that 
fiery upstanding bloom; but regale surpasses 
them all — that glowing trumpet, that slender 
rosy bud, those rich white pointed petals, and, to 
crown all, that incomparable fragrance, not heavy 
like L. auratuTrCs, but as fresh and delicate as 
that of heliotrope. So soon as the sun drops in 
the west, before even twilight has come on, this 
matchless perfume rises on the evening air, in the 
"dewy light," and all the garden seems of an un- 
earthly sweetness. I like this lily, planted above 
low subjects at the opposite ends of narrow beds; 
while in bloom, the lilies serve as accents, their 
slightly bending stems and handsome flowers clear- 
cut then against greensward. The play of light 
and shade upon such flowers is one of the most 
lovely minor sights to be seen in July. Occasion- 
ally four flowers open on the top of one stem — 
more often two or three. I am so lucky as to 
have about one hundred L. regale in bloom this 
year, and never have I seen these squares of green 
turf so admirably flanked by perfect flowers as at 
this moment. 

The elegance and charm of Ghiselaine de Feli- 
gonde, a new rambler rose, are beyond putting 
into words. The flame-colored bud opens well in 

19 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

water and the variety of tones of color is remark- 
able in a cluster of six roses, a few half-open 
buds, and two or three small ones still tight but 
showing color. Three of the open flowers are pale 
sulphur-yellow, with outer petals spread well back. 
The newly opened roses have that enchanting pale 
copper hue which sets this rose apart, and the 
half-opened buds show the deep-colored centre 
where petals are still folded, the outer ones of the 
light copper again. The foliage is of a medium 
light green, leaves more slender perhaps than on 
the average rambler, flowers averaging eight and 
ten to the cluster. 

Against low-clipped privet, delphiniums, taller 
than ever before, raise their blue spires. In places 
Annchen Mueller or Ellen Poulson dwarf ramblers 
send forth sprays of glowing pink blooms, these 
melting into the pale rose-colored masses of Can- 
terbury bells beside them, the two most excellent 
beside each other. As for heucheras (the only 
color blot on my garden this season, but so lovely, 
flaming delicately about the darkest red sweet- 
williams that I simply have to leave them in the 
garden-beds), they have flowered in a manner 
truly impressive. I must conclude that they too 
love space and air. There has seemed to be no 

20 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

check at all from replanting; in fact, everything 
we moved has prospered under the process. Even 
the one precious plant of Delphinium Moerheimi, 
which we divided in four with some hesitation, is 
sending up three white-flowered stems. Phlox 
Arendsii, in its varying soft colors of pinkish lav- 
ender and of white, is now, July 1, in full bloom, 
and back of its rounded groups the buds of the 
Madonna lily, held high on their tall stems, are 
whitening. Shasta daisies are opening below, 
budding sea holly, and some of those luscious 
violet petunias known as Karlsruhe Balcony are 
blooming in secluded spots, as if to prove their 
August and September worth. Delphinium blight, 
which seemed to hover seriously over this garden 
last year, has been gotten well in hand now, thanks 
to the lime-and-tobacco treatment recommended 
by Miss McGregor, of Springfield, Ohio. 

It is seldom that I find myself with two opinions 
about a flower, but two I hold concerning the dwarf 
crimson-rambler rose. That harsh crimson, al- 
most as difficult to place as the over-bright hue of 
Azalea amcena in spring, and so painful to contem- 
plate as its clusters take on the purplish hue which 
foretells their end — the same crimson, when set 
near the violet Salvia virgata nemorosa, becomes a 

21 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

crowning beauty on the garden's brow. No finer 
perennial plant for late June in our latitude can 
there be than this purple salvia. Entirely hardy, 
its inflorescence a multitude of upright spikes of 
small violet flowers, it has the effect of violet vel- 
vet in certain lights. Observing it on sunless 
days, when its color seems even richer than in 
brilliant light, I am reminded of the mention of 
the use of blue flowers in shade in Hubbard and 
Kimball's "An Introduction to the Study of 
Landscape Design." 

In flowering shrubs and particularly in flowering herba- 
ceous plants the landscape-designer has his greatest oppor- 
tunity in the use of color. In these materials he finds as 
wide a color range as the painter has; indeed, in some ways 
a wider range, for he may use, on the one hand, a pure 
white lily or a crimson cardinal flower or a flame azalea 
in sunshine, and on the other the deep-blue larkspur or 
monkshood in heavy shade. 

Its glory, nowever, reaches a great height when 
the dwarf crimson rambler neighbors it. These 
plants, like happy lovers, seem made for each 
other. The rose and the salvia coincide in time 
of bloom. There is an agreeable contrast in the 
forms of leaf and flower masses, and no sumptuous 
velvet cloak of a Venetian doge could show a 

22 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

prouder splendor of color than is brought forth 
by this coupling of flower groups above green 
turf. 

Salvia sclarea is now beginning to unroll from a 
fat-scaled bud its spirals of mauve bloom; and this 
plant, whose seed came by way of a kind English 
hand from the Vatican gardens, is one of the 
finest of acquisitions. Its place is among L. can- 
didum, or below pale-blue delphinium, although I 
have fancied that Salvia virgata nemorosd's violet 
flowers would make a happy combination near its 
mauve relation ; but in that case the crimson ram- 
bler should be not only out of sight but really out 
of mind. 

I have lately visited a charming garden over- 
hanging the upper waters of the Hudson River. 
In early July this was a picture of beauty, and it 
gave me, besides the delight of its situation and 
effect, an acquaintance with several new varieties 
of flowers. The garden consists of two wide 
flower borders set in the side of a precipitous hill; 
the borders and a long walk of tan-bark separating 
them lie upon a broad terrace. The terrace is 
backed by a high retaining wall of gray stone, and 
approached from either end by a descent of stone 
steps cleverly arranged for variety of level. The 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

whole garden is reminiscent of that renowned 
Scottish one, Barncluith, in Lanarkshire. 

To the color in this garden when I saw it this 
last July no pen can do justice, only a brush and 
a gifted one at that: great clouds of blues in 
delphinium trailed by the rounding bloom of that 
beautiful pale-yellow Thalictrum glaucum. The 
mauve and pink yarrow formed lovely foregrounds 
for these blues — here and there groups of lilies — 
candidum, regale — and the white gypsophila nes- 
tling in the angle of the staircase, and well at 
one end a most lovely array of bergamot of a 
particularly vivid carmine hue, unknown to me 
before. All these flowers are set in green. The 
wall at the back is hung with green leaves; the 
balustrades by the stone steps are garlanded with 
green. The flowers grow in rich profusion, but 
the practised eye recognizes in the greenery be- 
tween this brightness either the record of flowers 
past, or the promise of flowers to come. Borders 
such as these lying so boldly should be enough in 
themselves to give keen pleasure. Add to that 
beauty the fact that looking along this garden 
from either end and raising the eye to the middle 
distance, one sees apart the beautiful lines and 
color of a perfect Italian villa set among great 

24 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

trees, fronted by greensward properly propor- 
tioned, cooled, and made musical by pools and 
their fountains, why, I ask, should one desire 
more ? 

An instance of another garden: there is, for 
example, the new rose-garden of my neighbor. I 
helped her plan it, helped her in the buying of 
the plants. Now that it is July she brings me 
roses, roses, heaped-up baskets of them. She walks 
in at evening, through the French doors of the 
dining-room, where we sit at table in the late 
sunlight, yellow pansies and blue anchusa before 
us in low bowls among the silver of the table, and 
not only shows us her midsummer treasures but 
leaves them with us: Lady Ashtown's curling 
petals, Druschki's matchless milk-white, the red 
velvet of Chateau de Clos Vougeot, the magic 
beauty of Los Angeles — what a harvest we are 
reaping from what is another's ! I visit the gar- 
den; low stone walls, a background in one place 
of noble trees, perfect turf, and such an array of 
jewels in roses as is not often to be seen. 

When the small and simple garden is successful, 
one in which the owner has had to consider the 
exchequer, there is always about it the added 
matter to admire of ingenuity in spending. The 

25 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

right use of money bears witness to the right 
quality of mind; and in a garden cherished by its 
possessor reflections of the mind of that possessor 
are quickly seen. To apply the idea to the large 
and notable garden, it is the judicious spending of 
money here which will or will not be apparent. 
The memory of every lover of gardening will serve 
him truly as he recalls on occasion the great, bleak, 
barren gardens of his visits, gardens on which 
fortunes have been spent and from which he could 
only turn sadly away; and with equal certainty 
will he call to mind some tiny square of delicately 
managed flowers which are true expressions of the 
very texture of its owner's thoughts and hopes. 

A time will come when all America, in Matthew 
Arnold's lovely phrase, shall be "spreading her 
gardens to the moonlight," and, as that time ap- 
proaches, the quiet beauty of simple, good design, 
of delicate and harmonious color, and, where pos- 
sible, of good surroundings, must impress itself 
more and more upon our people. Those who 
know must practise this, that those who need to 
know may have a right example. In no art, in 
no pursuit, is a following more sure than in the 
art and in the pursuit of gardening. 



II 



LILACS AND OTHER SPRING 
FLOWERS 



Then it was so cold I had no inclination to stay. Of 
ny Spring delights, lilacs, apple-trees in bloom and night- 
ingales, the two last are over and the first going; ... for 
roses there was not even a white one on the 10th of June 
though they used to blow as religiously as the Glastonbury 
thorn. 

-—Horace Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossort, 
Strawberry Hill, June 13th, 1782. 



II 

LILACS AND OTHER SPRING 
-FLOWERS 

/^FTEN I wonder whether names of places 
^^ and of things speak to others as they do to 
me. Meaningless or poor names seem almost an 
affront, while beautiful or significant names start 
trains of thought leading in singularly pleasant 
directions. The names of Pullman cars are a 
curious study. Who named them.'^ Why are so 
many of these names foolish, almost to the point 
of imbecility? — almost as if letters had been 
shaken together in a box and drawn at random to 
constitute a word. 

But there are exceptions, and one is the name of 
a car in which I lately travelled in Indiana, with 
**Middlebush" on its doors. "'Middlebush,'" said 
I on seeing it. "Here is something to think of" 
— landscape planting flashed into the mind on 
sight; the bush which may connect the taller 
and the lower shrubs in some planting small or 
large; the bush which might bloom in mid-season. 

The Middlebush of our Michigan spring is un- 

29 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

doubtedly the lilac or syringa. Early shrubs have 
lost their blossoms; the shadbush, the wild plum, 
Spircea arguta^ Forsythias are long since green again 
after their white and gold of earliest spring; and 
yet the great tribe of the mock oranges, the Phila- 
delphus, is still to hang its whitening wreaths, still 
to breathe out upon the airs of evening that un- 
matched fragrance. Hydrangea arhorescens will 
follow these; then mid- June, and the procession 
of most of the familiar flowering shrubs is over. 

Let us, translating Middlebush into lilac, con- 
sider one of the most fascinating of all subjects, 
the lilac in some of its species and varieties. I 
bring to this a mind over-enthusiastic perhaps, 
for in a modest way I am collecting. The first 
blooming of my young trees occurred last spring. 
The trees themselves were set out two years ago 
this last autumn, and last spring all but four or 
five of sixty varieties showed some flowers, while 
many of the little three-foot things were in them- 
selves bouquets of loveliest color. 

There is for me only one way in which ade- 
quately to set down my impressions of a particu- 
lar flower or plant; that is, with that flower or 
plant before me. In May I rarely walk about 
even our small place without the pencil and the 

30 



LILACS AND SPRING FLOWERS 

memorandum block; and the notes which follow 
were made in the very presence of the lovely 
things themselves. If these comments seem ex- 
travagant, the excuse is the overwhelming beauty 
of the flowers, and that excitement which the gar- 
dener always feels when confronted for the first 
time with something as fine as it is new to him. 
Let me name some few of these lilacs, and add a 
word or two concerning each. For better de- 
scriptions I would send you to what Professor 
Sargent, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Havemeyer, Mr. Dun- 
bar, and Mr. Barry have written upon these flow- 
ers. I have not compared my notes with theirs, 
nor did I consult theirs before making these, as I 
wished to be quite unprejudiced in my comments. 
The earliest of all to bloom was Syringa Giraldii; 
delicate pinkish, a very open cluster, graceful, and 
free flowering. Marechal Lannes carried immense 
bluish-mauve flowerets, the thyrsus not very large 
but most effective for the size and color of its 
flowerets; exceedingly handsome. Mme. Antoine 
Buchner is a very distinct flower; buds of a faded 
pink, flowers of pinkish-white, slightly double. 
The flower clusters here were rather open and 
branching; this is a lilac of great slendemess 
and elegance. 

31 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Pasteur has superb blooms of rich reddish pur- 
ple. Its thyrses are tall and open, with large sin- 
gle flowerets. Coerulea superba has small but full 
clusters, rather bluish in tone. This variety is 
particularly free-flowering with loose branches, 
a great beauty. The bloom of Danton is of a 
very fine, clear, deep red-purple, with a large 
floweret. President Fallieres is one of the loveli- 
est, a charming semi-double pinkish bloom. Loose 
clusters of flowers came in tremendous numbers 
upon this three-foot specimen the first year after 
planting. Claude Bernard, with its palest lav- 
ender-pink flowers, is also very free-blooming. 
President Poincare has enchanting bluish flowers, 
double, with reddish-purple buds, buds and flowers 
an interesting contrast in color. Vestale is marked 
by many spikes of single white bloom on terminal 
branchlets. There is a special charm for me in 
Rene Jarry-Desloges, whose palest bluish-lavender 
flower, double, has a delicacy all its own. Thun- 
berg is lovely because of its deep-red buds all the 
way up the thyrsus of pink-lavender bloom. This 
gives a remarkable richness to the clustering 
flowers, which appear in four steeples, as one might 
say, to each cluster. 

Syringa Diderot, though moved in autumn, has 

32 



LILACS AND SPRING FLOWERS 

borne a cluster of flowers at every terminal point; 
in its first time of blooming, however, the flowers 
were not remarkable, reminding one only of the 
common lilac. Lamartine had a faint blooming — 
so did Miss Ellen Willmott — enough to show 
that here is a treasure in white lilacs. Small 
double flowerets appeared on this lilac last year, 
greenish or creamy, and very round buds. Mira- 
beau also gave one breath in flowers and expired; 
but I was too late in examining this to describe it. 

Syringa Milton's flowers are of a dull, rich lav- 
ender; a small floweret, but very fine in color. 
Marechal Lannes is a very full double, and of a good 
bluish-lavender. The fine loose and twisting pet- 
als of each floweret give a beautiful effect to the 
cluster of bloom, an effect of softness not always 
present in lilacs. Pasteur's distinguished habit of 
bloom sets it apart. The tall, upright thyrses of 
mauve flowers are set in sprays of large dark- 
green leaves. The play of light and shade upon 
the mauve and green is one of those special spring 
delights upon which the possessor of this lilac 
may almost surely count. 

Cavour has the most unbelievable number of 
seven pinnacles of flowers to each thyrsus — large 
flowerets at that — in each cluster. And for the 

S3 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

brilliance of this lilac in sun I have no adequate 
words. As for the species lilacs, S, pubescens, which 
when grown is like a tree of pale heliotrope, with 
a delicate fragrance unlike that of any lilac ever 
known; S. villosa^ with its loose pale-pink flowers 
(never shall I forget my first sight of this, cut with 
the pale-pearly Iris florentina or iris Storm King) ; 
and S. macrostachya, one of the most enchanting 
of all, very pinkish — one has to see these in order 
to realize their beauty. Here I mention only 
three, but there are many others; and the collect- 
ing and comparing of such subjects is well worth 
the endeavor of many years of a gardener's life. 
It happens that my lilacs are placed only four feet 
apart in the rows where they stand; and I am now 
in that painful condition of mind of wishing I 
could in some way keep them back; for such rounds 
of bloom, such fascinating little flower-covered 
shrubs, there can hardly be in any other genus. 

I remember a suggestive sentence of Professor 
Sargent's: "The person who first arranges a fine 
border of the newer shrubs with regard to color 
and succession of bloom, will have done a great 
thing for horticulture in America." How simple 
this would be in lilacs, if one only lived near the 
great Arboretum, or that amazingly fine collection 

34 



LILACS AND SPRING FLOWERS 

at Highland Park in Rochester, and could watch 
their leafy, flowery progress through the months, 
make notes, have a trial ground of one's own suffi- 
ciently large, and — most important of all — start 
the work when young. 

So strong is habit, especially habit of mind, that, 
seeing these lilacs of our own, many in bloom at 
once, set out without regard to anything but the 
few feet of space allotted to each, it was impossi- 
ble not to think of them as sometime or some- 
where properly planted; planted with a view to 
contrast of color, to contrast of form, to harmony 
in hues, and especially to see them blooming above 
other spring flowers, whose beauty should only 
accentuate their own. 

The pinkish group in these lilacs, for those 
who prefer this color, is President Fallieres, Mon- 
taigne, Frau Antoine Buchner (Buchner in Ridg- 
way is "pale rose purple"); a group of deepest 
mauve flowers, Danton, President Poincare, Mare- 
chal Lannes, Marceau, and Milton. The contrast 
in size of floret between those of Ccerulea and 
Emile Gentil is astonishing. For strong contrast 
in color I suggest using these pairs together: 
Thunberg, Marechal Lannes; Jarry-Desloges, Dan- 
ton; Marceau, macrostachya; Diderot, Jarry- 

35 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Desloges; Fallieres, Gen til; Montaigne, Dan ton; 
Coerulea, Gilbert, and macrostachya. The bluest 
of my little collection are Ccerulea superba, Gilbert, 
Emile Gentil, and R. Jarry-Desloges. 

Most of these lilacs are still costly, anywhere 
from $2.50 to $5.00 each. These suggestions are 
made that those who covet this beauty for them- 
selves can get more interest out of the buying of 
even two or three specimens. It is easy in choos- 
ing blindly to secure monotony, and that, of all 
things, is the pity in securing living subjects. 
The loss of charm, of education of the selective 
faculty in gardening, is one of the greatest of 
pities. 

Turning now to an even more fascinating side 
of the lilac, its use with other flowers, there is a 
field which few people have explored. One be- 
comes desperate here for new adjectives. The old 
ones cannot express the feeling of freshness of in- 
terest in the combining of new flowers with old. 
It is an experience apart. For instance, below a 
group of the bluer lilacs, Emile Gentil and Ccerulea 
superba, two tulips stand out beyond others as 
the ones for the place — Bleu Celeste and Ewbank. 
These I have held below the lilacs in bloom and 
know whereof I speak. Late myosotis — Perfec- 

36 




LILACS, MYOSOTIS, AND TULIP " INNOVATION ' 



LILACS AND SPRING FLOWERS 

tion or Royal Blue — with Mertensia virginica is 
perfection grown below Syringa pubescens. On 
ground beneath the lovely clusters of Diderot, 
tulip Bleu Celeste, and again the forget-me-not. 
President Fallieres, that heavenly lilac, should 
have as neighbor tulip Fairy Queen ; and for a pic- 
ture unsurpassed let the gardener place below 
Jarry-Desloges that early Iris germanica, Storm 
King, or Florentina perhaps, with loose groups of 
Tulipa retrqflexa^ if possible the large form of this 
tulip offered by one or two dealers — a very tall 
sort of palest yellow. Again, below SyriJiga pubes- 
cenSy iris Mrs. Alan Gray and a floor of forget- 
me-nots, is an arrangement the mere contempla- 
tion of which should cause any winter to pass 
quickly. Cavour seems to call for pale-lavender 
Darwin tulips near. These are very fine contem- 
poraries. Try the small flower experiments, I 
beg of you; and bear in mind that splendid sen- 
tence of Miss Jekyll's lately written, *' There is 
no finality in gardening." 

When we think of and plan and eventually see 
some of these spring pictures, which really can be 
better done in America than elsewhere, then the 
photographs of Miss Jekyll's Nut Walk, with 
daffodils and primroses, will not discourage but 

37 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

encourage us; the pictures of her spring garden 
will serve only to show that beauty is not the 
possession of England alone. For authorities tell 
us that America is par excellence the climate for 
the lilac. An experienced Dutchman once said 
that Europe could show no such spring spectacle 
as is to be seen in Mr. Havemeyer's Long Island 
gardens of lilacs in May; and, so far as is known, 
there are but two enemies of the lilac in this coun- 
try — wet and the borer. Old trees have been 
seen to droop and fail and even die in the Middle 
West in an over- wet spring; but this type of sea- 
son is the exception with us. Many a time in 
winter, if the cold seems long, the snows too per- 
sistent, I walk through my lilac rows, and the 
sight of those stout green buds, hearty and cheer- 
ful in the zero weather, is the best promise possi- 
ble of winter's end and a spring to come. 



38 



Ill 



TULIP TIME IN THE GARDEN 



Grass and leaves we have in such abundance, that our 
landscapes are even uncommonly luxuriant. Nebuchad- 
nezzar, who used to eat his dominions, would here be the 
most opulent prince upon earth. 

■ — Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, Strawberry 
Hill, Sept. 25, 1782. 



Ill 

TULIP TIME IN THE GARDEN 

AS time goes on the lover and observer of 
- gardening in its many forms cannot but no- 
tice the great appreciation of interest in spring- 
flowering bulbs. Among these nothing has sprung 
more quickly into favor under the public eye than 
the late tulip. One may consider it as firmly 
settled in American gardening affections for many 
years to come. And when ultimately the grower 
of these beautiful subjects shall have tried all the 
varieties in our own dealers' lists, all that he may 
have found in foreign ones — if he then sighs for 
more tulip worlds to conquer, think of the further 
joys that shall be his as he realizes that from that 
point on he is a collector! He finds himself in 
the happy valley of a general knowledge of the 
tulip kingdom. He has now and only now quali- 
fied as one who may climb the pleasant slopes 
which lead to the knowledge of hybridizing, to 
that of the rarer varieties of tulip such as the Old 
English or Florists*. Membership in one or two 
of the small societies of enthusiasts in special 

41 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

tulips should now be open to him, and one of the 
lower summits of tulip satisfaction is attained. 

Among the many attributes which endear this 
bulb to the gardener is its adaptability for use in 
small plots or gardens. Brilliant effects can be 
had in spaces almost absurdly small, if spring 
flowers are used. How these minute squares of 
color catch and delight the eye in spring ! And 
this is not only because gay color is welcome then. 

There is in Pennsylvania not far from its great 
eastern city, in a countryside of gentle beauty 
so like the Sussex Downs that one often fancies 
himself in England, one of these charming smaller 
gardens on a hillside. A constant and changing 
beauty in flowers marks it, but in May, with all 
the freshness of the spring about, it is a flashing 
jewel with its tulips and abundance of other effec- 
tive low-growing spring flowers. 

On a day in mid-May we descend from a brick- 
paved terrace shadowed by a great pine, to a 
gentle slope of turf toward this little garden, 
enclosed by a four-foot hedge of clipped privet. 
On the right, still below the sloping ground, an 
old stone spring-house is seen, hung with clouds 
of lavender wistaria. White lilacs in full beauty 
flank the garden-gate — a picket gate set in a 



TULIP TIME IN THE GARDEN 

white archway which supports a mass of rambler 
rose foh'age at its freshest and best. 

Through the green-and-white entrance we pass 
into a dazzhng garden on two levels, turf-walked, 
privet-hedged, cedar-accented, framing a most 
delicate and unstudied effect of spring color in 
flowers. The gateway is half-way up the slope 
of the lower or perennial garden, and as we turn 
to the right we see, below the retaining wall 
which serves as a boundary for the lower end, 
benches and table for the al fresco tea set beneath 
the shade of the great maple-tree. 

Here are eight beds of tulips beautifully planted 
by those whose color-sense is sure, a vision of 
loveliness about the 10th of each May. Tones 
of clear lavender, rich violet, and paler and darker 
rose form the scheme. The effects thus created 
by the use of Darwin, Cottage, and Breeder tulips 
and larger or smaller groupings of Phlox divaricata 
are those to cause an artist to rejoice, so perfect 
are they. 

Below budding peonies, and as a foreground 
for iris leaves, is a drift of the delicious phlox we 
now begin to know so well, its lavender charmingly 
enhanced by loose groups of the tulip Bleu Celeste, 
of a medium violet hue, beyond it. To the left 

43 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

the soft, cool pink of tulip Flamingo shows itself 
in perhaps not more than five tall flowers — a 
suggestion to use a small number of these glorious 
blooms and thus rid some of us of the mistaken 
feeling that in numbers of tulips there is strength. 

Farther on in the sunlit garden stands Flamingo 
again, with Dream in its pale-lavender dress 
beyond; then green spaces of young leaves of 
delphiniums, with tulip Lantern's silvery lilac 
next and tulip Clara Butt beyond. The mounds 
of young greens in varying tones among all these 
tulips of light, clear colors furnish a wonderful 
setting for the glories of the flowers themselves. 
Whether from a distance or close at hand the 
composition is perfect. 

The play of light and shade on such a garden is 
in itself memorable. Phlox divaricata in a back- 
ground of shadow with tulip Bleu Celeste in sun 
in the foreground form a rich spring picture. 
Also the semi-careless arrangement of flowers with 
regard to variety in height and color strikes one 
at every turn as being remarkably successful. 
An order of placing uncommonly good is this — 
tulips Bleu Celeste, Flamingo, Dream, Lantern 
{syn. Nizza)y Clara Butt, with Phlox divaricata 
interwoven, and touches of the little gray-leaved 




TULIPS IN A PENNSYLVANIA GARDEN 




FOUNTAIN IN A PENNSYLVANIA GARDEN 



TULIP TIME IN THE GARDEN 

flax (Linum perenne) accidental in effect. Foliage 
of perennial phlox and the incised leaves of del- 
phiniums form the green background for these 
delightful flowers. 

A touch of running water adds much to a gar- 
den picture. It is here in a very simple wall 
fountain where the stream falls into a shallow 
basin made by half of an ancient millstone, flanked 
by a planting of Iris Kaempferi. This fountain 
is really below and outside of the garden and near 
the seats under the maple, but fountain, jar, pool, 
and sun-dial — this last is placed in the rose gar- 
den — all are upon the same axis. 

Nora Ware, a very small lavender tulip, is used 
in the beds here; Dream stands back of it, flanked 
by the foliage of peony and lupine, with tulip 
Le Reve, beloved by all who know it, in the fore- 
ground. Back of this group again, more green, 
more green, and tulip Bleu Aimable beyond. The 
color of Bleu Aimable is the same as that of Bleu 
Celeste, but the former is a single tulip of the 
Darwin type. Clara Butt stands beyond this 
grouping, at a distance sufficient to keep its 
cooler rose-pink from conflict with the strange 
and lovely color of Le Reve. 

All through this garden, too, in certain springs 

45 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

at the time of tulip bloom, little colonies of 
Narcissus poeticus are in flower. These, the only 
white in the garden since the general scheme is 
lavender and pale to bright rose, give that deli- 
cate effect which is found when stevia, gypso- 
phila, and other fine-flowering whites are added 
to bowls or bouquets of subjects which are de- 
cidedly strong in form and color. 

On leaving the garden by its gateway toward the 
house, it is a marvel to lift one's eyes from all 
this beauty within formal limits and above a bar 
of dark hedge to see long garlands of wistaria in 
full bloom along the old stone wall of the spring- 
house, the quaint little building without which 
no Pennsylvania or Maryland farm-woman in the 
old days was expected to perform the duties of 
a housewife. The spring-house now serves as a 
studio. 

Too much can never be said of the charm of 
the Pennsylvania farmhouse — the old farm- 
house, generally of blue limestone most beauti- 
fully laid. The proportions of some of these, 
their delicacy of color, and their comfortable, 
convenient placing and rare environments of fine 
tree groupings make the old rural architecture 
of that State a thing to covet and enjoy. Those 

46 



TULIP TIME IN THE GARDEN 

old builders understood not only what to build 
but how and where to set their houses for shelter 
and for practical purposes; wherefore, a picture 
of high beauty was, sometimes unconsciously, 
created. When considering foregrounds such as 
this charming little formal garden affords, the 
backgrounds furnished by near-by buildings, or 
by a landscape soft and finished, can hardly be 
passed by without a word, so bound up together 
are all the elements of such a picture. And I am 
always wondering why Pennsylvania is not the 
resort of more people who love beauty which be- 
longs to nature and to man. 

If I may let this spring garden serve as a text 
for further tulip preachings, I would tell of an 
effect on our own grounds in Michigan. From 
the house in which we live a walk of dark brick, 
like the house, runs east some sixty feet to the 
street. To dwell upon the borders flanking the 
sides of an insignificant walk such as this may 
sound a bit presumptuous; but let me quickly 
say that last year these borders were positively 
kaleidoscopic in effect. And to encourage those 
who think they can do little in gardening because of 
restricted space, I will give approximate measure- 
ments as well as some account of the plantings. 

47 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

This walk is some five feet in width and runs 
from east to west. Some years ago word came 
to me concerning the interesting manner in 
which grapes were grown in low festoons along the 
walks of certain Lenox kitchen-gardens; where- 
fore, lacking other place for grapes, and thinking 
that the little decoration of such vines might not 
be out of place here, I set to the south of this walk 
and only ten inches from it a number of two-foot 
iron posts nine feet apart, painted dark green 
and connected by drooping chains. Every other 
length between posts now has its grape: Caco — 
the fine new cross between Catawba and Concord 
— for a reddish sort, and Niagara for the greenish 
color. Grape leaves are allowed to grow only 
scantily on these low vines, as too many leaves 
would obscure the effect of line and form. 

To the north of this walk, throughout its length, 
grows a line of Thunberg's barberry, and some- 
time I intend to replace these by Wilson's, or 
some one of the new cotoneasters. These take a 
space, brick-edged on the sides and ends, away 
from the walk, of about six by sixty feet, whereas 
the space of open ground under the grapes across 
the walk is only two feet wide, with grass at its 
southernmost boundary. Below both grapes and 

48 



TULIP TIME IN THE GARDEN 

barberries the ground is entirely covered, or des- 
tined to be, with Vinca minor, the common 
green myrtle, a delight in both summer and 
winter. 

Through this covering of rich green arose last 
April a host of lovely crocuses, planted in the fol- 
lowing order: Pallas, Tilly Koenen, Julia Culp, 
Mikado, Pallas again, Ovidius, and one touch of 
the so-called Largest Golden Yellow, making an 
effect of lovely lavender violet and white with the 
yellow to give a strong and sudden contrast. 
Across from it, and just as crocus colors were fad- 
ing and their delightful leaves making their pres- 
ence felt, as if unexpectedly, sprang into flower 
long, loose groups of narcissus Sir Watkin, tulip 
White Hawk, tulip Fred Moore, and the beautiful 
double early tulip Safrano, leading up to some 
fair-sized groups of mahonia below the walls of the 
house. Before and among these shining-leaved 
shrubs rose quantities of the daffodil I now prefer 
to all others, Narcissus Leedsii, White Lady. Its 
beauty is nothing short of regal; and to use a 
common phrase of our English confreres, it is a 
"good doer." 

Following the crocus bloom here came a gay, 
loose-flung line of blowing flowers, in colors rang- 

49 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

ing from tawny orange through deep and pale 
yellow to ivory white — flowers double, flowers 
single, flowers tall, slender, graceful, flowers round 
and heavy-headed. Little art is required to gain 
such effects. The most careless planting of these 
particular varieties of bulbs must result beauti- 
fully. A little thought for the progression of 
color, a little watchfulness as to overcrowding or 
setting too far apart — that is all. 

But I am in danger of being led astray by the 
beauty of individual flowers, and must return to 
the border planting of the walk long enough to 
say that when the flowers last named have finished 
blooming, when their leaves in turn carpet the 
ground in patterns of blue-greens and yellow- 
greens, then we begin to see for the first time the 
spires of buds on the rounded and symmetrical 
Canterbury bells on either side of the walk. These 
are three feet apart, and as their buds develop we 
see that they are white upon the south side of the 
walk and light purple on the north; and a third 
even row to the north of the barberries is all of 
that good pink tone which is to me the very best 
in these flowers. From crocuses to Canterbury 
bells is a long way in spring and early summer. 
Yet one must remember that if there happened 

50 



TULIP TIME IN THE GARDEN 

to be a green moment between flowering periods 
it was in itself a thing to revel in, and so engross- 
ing that the opening of the next arrangement of 
flowers took place with an unexpected promptness 
which gave that surprise which is perhaps the 
dearest gift his ground can give the gardener. 

Does any word other than "welcome" better 
describe one's feelings as to the spring? The 
flowers of this enchanting time keep the expres- 
sion almost hourly in mind; and is it an undue 
use of the imagination to fancy that the reason 
for the special charm of spring flowers about the 
house-door is that they speak that precious word 
"welcome" to those about to enter? How mar- 
vellous that by the heavenly means of color and 
fragrance we may send forth the very spirit of our 
houses even beyond their gates. 



51 



IV 



AN ENGLISH GARDEN IN 
SPRING 



I have been In town but one single night this age, as I 
could not bear to throw away this phoenix June. It has 
rained a good deal this morning, but only made it more 
delightful. The flowers are all Arabian. 
— Horace Walpole to the Countess of Ailesbuby, 
Strawberry Hill, June 25, 1778. 



IV 

AN ENGLISH GARDEN IN 
SPRING 

FOR those who cannot or who will not travel, 
and whose gardening interests still leap 
across seas to other lands, substitutes in the way 
of photographs prove the alternative, supple- 
mented, of course, by written description. And, 
since substitutes some of us must and will have, 
pictures of the type with which this writing deals 
are as near perfection as such things may be. 

Here, to the eye accustomed to finding color, 
light, and shade in pictures, are these qualities in 
high degree. Here are shown forth a particularly 
interesting ancient dwelling in Wales and its gar- 
dens in the spring, Mathern Palace, for thirteen 
hundred years an episcopal residence. 

In 1894 the property came into the hands of 
Mr. W. Avray Tipping, the distinguished English 
writer on architecture. Under his able direction 
the conversion of the old house to meet the needs 
of modern living was done without losing one 
whiff of the savor of an antique time. That Mr. 

55 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Tipping is one of the best of amateur gardeners, 
too, one cannot doubt who sees these pictures and 
who has read of his later horticultural achieve- 
ments at a newer place, Mounton House. 

In his own words he thus tells briefly the story 
of the gardens of Mathern Palace: 

"If the house is essentially old, the gardens are 
absolutely new. The sordid untidiness of a hope- 
lessly ill-contrived and unrepaired farmstead pre- 
vailed in 1894. There was a potato patch or two 
amid the rubbish-heaps, and some evidence still 
remained of a farmer's wife who had liked her few 
flowers but had not been able to cope with the 
difiiculties of the situation. Here, again, care was 
taken not to lessen the value of the picturesque 
but plain old building by detailed architectural 
effect. Terraces were laid out on the southern 
slope, but they were walled simply and with the 
local limestone. A good deal of pavement was 
used, and broad grass-ways, edged with borders 
and backed by yew hedges, were contrived. The 
steeper slope to the west was made into a rock 
garden leading down to old fish-ponds, where a 
good deal of water gardening was introduced. 
All this was taken out of a field and orchard, the 
trees of which were retained, and a matured effect 

56 




From a pholograpli., Lupunijid touiilri/ Life, London 

MATHERN PALACE; THE OLD QUADRANGLE 



AN ENGLISH GARDEN IN SPRING 

was almost at once produced. The climate and 
the soil are good, and the whole of the gardens, as 
the illustrations will show, are rich in jfloral effect. 
The simple, old-fashioned aspect of the English 
country home of the past, that had its farmery 
attached, and that drew no hard-and-fast division 
between its flower and vegetable gardens, has been 
sought for and obtained. 

"The title of the house has descended from the 
days of the episcopal lords marchers, and it implies 
a certain grandeur in no way reflected by the place 
as it is to-day. It aims at being a quiet home 
where the simple life may be led." 

We have not, it is true, the rich backgrounds in 
buildings for such garden pictures as these, but 
ours is a climate unsurpassed for spring gardening 
— subjects in untold variety, not only our fine 
native flora, but plants, shrubs, and trees from 
the round world itself, and we may, we do have 
spring pictures unsurpassed. Such delicious dis- 
posings of tulips and myosotis as are here shown 
should not discourage but stir us to fresh hope 
and effort in gardening. Still, how could such 
flowers as these of Mathern Palace appear any- 
where to such advantage as when they shine 
against close-shaven foliage, as in the grass alley^ 

57 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

or when each colored cup of tuHp and sky-blue 
cluster of myosotis are thrown into relief against 
the smooth turf, as seen in the old quadrangle ? 

Who can gaze at the illustration of the grass 
alley without longing to look on the bright scene 
itself ? — the quiet setting of tree masses, the two 
gables of the old house on the right, deep in foliage; 
and, gaily fronting the delicate spring background 
of blossoming tree and lilac, a dazzling effect of 
lines of flowers against rich green. Filled with 
color is this picture; and the coquetry of the 
topiary work seems to be part of the laughing 
beauty of the whole. Myosotis carpets the bor- 
ders on either side of the walk; late tulips trail 
a garland of rich hues above the blue, and the 
brilliant color has the perfect foil in the dark 
clipped yew which backs it all. 

The grass walk seems to divide two gardens — 
perhaps a rose garden on the right, to the left a 
garden of tulips is hinted at. The alley is an ex- 
ample of what such a walk should be, in width, in 
height of massive subject for the border — a lesson 
in beauty of proportion. Happy he whose work, 
whose lovely creation, is an effect in flowers such 
as this. Happy they who have strolled in May 
along this goodly walk, and fortunate we who, 

58 




From a 'photoqraph. cnpi/r'm ' ' , i , mhin 

MATHERN PALACE; TULIPS AND MYOSOTIS 




Fro)n a pholor/raph, copyright f'otintri/ Life. London 

MATHERN PALACE; THE GRASS ALLEY 



AN ENGLISH GARDEN IN SPRING 

with this picture before us on the page, may learn 
from it once again that simpHcity and breadth of 
plan are the successful principles of formal gar- 
dening. 

In the photograph of the old quadrangle the 
value of shadow is first of all apparent — the gay 
brilliance of sunlit flowers against sunlit walls, all 
rich because of shade. Here too is a paved walk, 
well placed, not cutting the green into two parts, 
as so often is the American case; but allowing all 
possible sweep to the reach of grass, ivy just 
enough to compose well, a few climbing roses 
against the ancient house garlanding the beautiful 
old windows — and one has suggestions which for 
simplicity and beauty cannot be surpassed. 

The tulip-bed, too, gives endless hints as to pic- 
turesque roof -line and mass, the happy use of trees, 
an unobtrusive tea-house fitted to perfection into 
its corner of the paved garden, for protection 
against English rain and mist; and, again, the fas- 
cinating foreground of color in flowers. 

Gardens such as these speak to one's spirit. 
The harmony, the fitness of it — "All's fair that's 
fit" — the originality of a plan which though new 
seems old — all fills the mind and eye with satis- 
faction and high pleasure. For myself, it is with 

59 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

gardens (and on first sight) as with people. They 
are simpatica or not. Let me give two impres- 
sions of American gardens, which in my case 
happened either to commend or not to commend 
themselves to this individual eye, an eye not suf- 
ficiently intelligent to be over-critical. 

The two gardens in mind now are the antipodes 
of each other — one a formal garden with much 
costly stone and marble — flowers grown to per- 
fection, all kept in order — but a garden which 
leaves one cold. There is no heart in it, no indi- 
viduality. It is a mockeiy in gardening — its bor- 
ders have in it only the pride of the eye. "See, 
this is mine. I too have a garden; is it not bet- 
ter than yours or my neighbor's? It is more 
costly." When gardening takes this form beauty 
is gone. 

The garden set over against this in my mind is 
on a steep and wooded hillside, upon one of the 
loveliest of American lakes; indeed, one of the 
lovehest lakes in any land. In the centre of this 
garden is a glorious pine-tree, tall, spreading, sym- 
metrical. This has been taken as the pivotal fea- 
ture, and a charming grouping of flower-spaces, 
with little box-edged walks, arranged to radiate 
from it. Also, there is a long arbor at the higher 

60 



AN ENGLISH GARDEN IN SPRING 

end of the garden, flagged with stone, and at one 
end a sitting-place, from which a vision of blue 
water and purple mountain is a surprise and a de- 
light. When I had the happiness of seeing this 
simple but beautiful and personal garden, frost had 
browned it. There remained only smouldering 
embers of flowers, embers which but a week before 
had been tongues of flame. No matter. Here 
was a garden speaking to the heart as well as to 
the eye. Charm was in its every line and frag- 
ment of composition. Above all, the words which 
leaped to one's mind within its boundaries, words 
which should be applicable to every garden, were 
those most precious ones, seclusion, tranquillity, 
peace. 

I shall endeavor now to describe three flowery 
vistas. In these I have but two supports to 
which to refer. Miss Jekyll's own printed words, 
and the memorj^ of a certain afternoon at Mun- 
stead Wood in July some years ago. Then, in 
company with a dear little girl of ten, whose in- 
terest lay mainly in Miss Jekyll's pet cats, I had 
a few hours of that pleasure unique among plea- 
sures, of seeing the lovely place and walking there 
with its distinguished and hospitable owner. This 
was sixteen years ago, but the picture is as fresh as 

61 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

though it had been last summer, so deep an impress 
does the highest beauty in gardening leave upon 
the mind of its affectionate student and disciple. 

The three pictures mentioned above show three 
distinct periods of bloom — the nut walk, early 
spring; the second a July border; the third the 
flowers of August. The beginning of this nut 
walk, whose tree is, of course, the cob or hazel-nut 
{Corylus), is described in Miss Jekyll's book, 
"Wood and Garden," with such practical detail 
that the passage is given entire. This was written 
in 1900, and the walk is now thirty years old — a 
beautiful tunnel of small trees, at whose feet prim- 
roses and hellebores cover the ground on either 
side of the narrow path. 

"The nut walk was planted twelve years ago. 
There are two rows on each side, one row four feet 
behind the other, and the nuts are ten feet apart 
in the rows. They are planted zigzag, those in 
the back rows showing between the front ones. 
As the two inner rows are thirteen feet apart, 
measuring across the path, it leaves a shady bor- 
der on each side, with deeper bays between the 
nearest trees. Lent hellebores fill one border from 
end to end; the other is planted with the Corsican 
and the native kinds, so that throughout February 

6£ 



AN ENGLISH GARDEN IN SPRING 

and March there is a complete bit of garden of one 
kind of plant in full beauty of flower and foliage. 
"The nut-trees have grown into such thick 
clumps that now there must be vigorous thinning. 
Each stool has from eight to twelve main stems, 
the largest of them nearly two inches thick. Some 
shoot almost upright, but two or three in each 
stool spread outward, with quite a diflFerent habit 
of growth, branching about in an angular fashion. 
These are the oldest and thickest. There are also 
a number of straight suckers one and two years 
old. Now when I look at some fine old nut alley, 
with the tops arching and meeting overhead, as I 
hope mine will do in a few years, I see that the 
trees have only a few stems, usually from three to 
five at the most, and I judge that now is the time 
to thin mine to about the right number, so that 
the strength and growing power may be thrown 
into these and not allowed to dilute and waste 
itself in growing extra fagoting. The first to be 
cut away are the old crooked stems. They grow 
nearly horizontally and are all elbows, and often 
so tightly locked into the straighter rods that they 
have to be chopped to pieces before they can be 
pulled out. When these are gone it is easier to 
get at the other stems, though they are often so 

63 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

close together at the base that it is difficult to chop 
or saw them out without hurting the bark of the 
ones to the left. All the young suckers are cut 
away. They are of straight, clean growth, and 
we prize them as the best possible sticks for 
chrysanthemums and potted lilies. 

"After this bold thinning, instead of dense, 
thickety bushes we have a few strong, well- 
branched rods to each stool. At first the nut walk 
looks wofully naked, and for the time its pictorial 
value is certainly lessened; but it has to be done, 
and when summer side-twigs have grown and 
leafed it will be fairly well-clothed, and meanwhile 
the hellebores will be the better for the thinner 
shade." Miss Jekyll then proceeds to describe her 
visit, long before the above was written, to the 
cob-nut nursery near Reading, where she pro- 
cured her foliage. Here she saw "alleys of nuts 
in all directions," and below them thousands of 
the pale-yellow daffodil, Narcissus cernuus. It 
was surely that visit and that picture which 
finally flowered into the lovely reality of the nut 
walk of Munstead Wood as it appears in 1918 in 
the photograph under consideration. 

Since the descriptive passage above was written, 
many other spring flowering plants have been intro- 



AN ENGLISH GARDEN IN SPRING 

duced into these delightful borders. The helle- 
bores bloom first, then primroses, the famous 
Munstead strain, of course, in whites and palest 
yellows, these showing among Myosotis dissitiflora; 
tiarella, the foam-flower, is used "in patches," and 
TJvularia grandiflora, pale yellow, with Dentaria 
diphylla, white daffodils, dogtooth violets, and 
again the forget-me-nots, with a plant unknown to 
me, Triteleia uniflora. Back in the borders are 
columbines and Solomon's seal. Thus is Miss 
Jekyll's "tunnel of green shade" furnished forth 
in April and in May. Why do we not practice 
more in our country this type of planting ^ It is 
especially to be commended to the young amateur, 
who may, in middle age, reap the fruit of his nut- 
tree planting, and who, after three years of growth, 
may see a rich carpet of spring flowers awaiting 
those light lines of shadow from the future over- 
hanging boughs of his hazels. 

From the whites, pale yellows, and soft greens 
of spring, the delicate illumination of that early 
time, we leap now into the glorious hues of July. 
To turn to the photograph of the July border, the 
luxuriant masses of flowers have a setting of great 
depth and richness in the close foliage of tree and 
shrub; and a wall of sandstone on the right is the 

65 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

perfect background for the strong leaves of the 
yuccas which raise themselves against it. Here 
color plays a most important part. The flowers 
are mainly perennial. The scheme of color is pale 
blue, pale yellow, white, and gray. Foliage plants 
at the ends, and here and there in the borders, 
supply the last. For the blue-flowering plants, or 
rather plants with some blue in them. Campanula 
lactiflora is used, and some of the bluish spider- 
worts, also Agathea ccelestis, and the blue lobelia. 
These replace the blues of earher delphiniums and 
anchusas. Among the gray-leaved plants Eryn- 
gium oliverianum, rue with a pale-yellow bloom, 
sea-kale, and such lower things as Stachys lanata. 
Cineraria maritima create delicate effects as foils 
for color. The yellows are the flowers of snap- 
dragons, Thalictrum flavum, a golden privet judi- 
ciously set, tall yellow mulleins, and, delightful to 
record, as all that this plant needs is a proper use 
to make it everywhere charming, pale yellow 
cannas. White is brought into the border by 
means of snapdragons, the white everlasting pea, 
trained over old delphinium stalks, double meadow- 
sweet. Clematis recta, cleverly staked, and the 
flowers of the yucca, rising majestic from the rest. 
The middle portions of this July border on either 

66 



AN ENGLISH GARDEN IN SPRING 

side of the walk have plants with bloom of orange 
and scarlet, plentifully scattered with gray and 
white plant material. These bright effects in turn 
merge into the pale yellows, grays, whites, and 
lavenders of the further ends of the walk; crescendo 
and diminuendo are complete. 



67 



V 



SUMMER THOUGHTS IN 
WINTER 



I have made a vast plantation. Lord Leicester told me 
the other day that he heard I would not buy some old 
china, because I was laying out all my money in trees: 
"Yes," said I, "my lord, I used to love blue trees, but 
now I like green ones." 

— ^Horace Walpole to Sir Hoeace Mann, Strawberry 
HiU, May 3, 1749. 



SUMMER THOUGHTS IN 
WINTER 

IET him who will declare there is no color in 
-^ winter landscape — that is, in a landscape 
whitened by snow. I point this man to the Janu- 
ary scene in a part of our country not generally 
considered to have beauty; a gently rolling coun- 
try with here and there a woodlot and sometimes 
a cedar swamp. And I ask him to look in early 
morning sunlight at the pale and delicate blue of 
the sky above these fields and woods; at the rich 
browns of oak foliage, at the pale tans of the little 
ghostly beeches, with their leaves which are a 
reminiscence; at the grays of trunk and bough, 
and at the bluish shadows cast by these gray draw- 
ings upon the soft, deep w^hiteness of the ground. 
An austerity of beauty lies in the pale, cold winter 
color seen here; and when by chance the dark 
mass of a white pine or the pointed tops of cedar 
groups come into the forefront of the picture, 
their rich hues are almost too startling for the 
pallid yet lovely background. 

71 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

The subject of the garden in winter is not a 
new one. Long, long ago Addison put his deHght 
in his winter garden into words of beauty. To the 
true gardener the very breath of Hfe is in that 
essay. To-day Katherine Tynan, in a charming 
lyric, "The Winter Garden," sings the theme as 
only an Irish singer can. I look through the win- 
dow at my own bit of ground and am not only 
comforted, consoled, but stimulated by all that 
others have written concerning gardens in winter. 
I begin to think of the value of winter to the gar- 
dener as well as to the garden. Now it is that 
the mind turns back upon itself. Now thoughts 
of flowers must replace the actual flowers. Those 
imagined, whether faint or bright, must be one's 
consolation now. And the very contrast between 
the real garden of a summer past and the fancied 
garden of a summer to come is, must be, a spur 
to better and more perfect following of the dear 
pursuit. 

Days there are in April possessed of a blue-and- 
green splendor not surpassed by those of June. 
These are the days when the very glass of one's 
window seems more crystalline for the glories seen 
through it. Such greens, such delicate shadows of 
trees upon turf, blurred just a bit by the soft out- 

72 



SUMMER THOUGHTS IN WINTER 

lines of bud along bough ! And then, across the 
glory of this newest, earliest grass, tight bouquets 
of color, long, loose garlands of color, crocuses 
flung down upon the brown earth, rimming the 
green as with enamel ! Who among contemporary 
writers can paint the spring with so incomparable 
a brush as Mrs. Humphry Ward? 'They left 
the garden and wandered through some rocky 
fields on the side of the fell, till they came to one 
where Linnseus or any other pious soul might 
well have gone upon his knees for joy. Some 
loving hand had planted it with daffodils — the 
wild Lent lily of the district, though not now very 
plentiful about the actual lakes. And the daffodils 
had come back rejoicing to their kingdom and 
made it their own again. They ran in lines and 
floods, in troops and skirmishers all through the 
silky grass and round the trunks of the old knotted 
oaks that hung as though by one foot from the 
emerging rocks and screes. Above, the bloom of 
the wild cherries made a wavering screen of silver 
between the daffodils and the May sky; amid the 
blossoms the golden-green of the oaks struck a 
strong, riotous note; and far below, at their feet, 
the lake lay blue with all the sky within it, aad 
the softness of the larch-woods on its banks.' 

73 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

The time is the 23d of March. A robin has 
come, a song-sparrow has been heard; we wan- 
der to the south boundary of our two acres in 
search of snowdrops. And here, on a Httle slope 
where the garland thorn and the red cedar grow 
to a height of some twelve feet, is a little but 
delicious spectacle of spring snowdrops, white bells 
ringing in the spring wind, and down the tiny 
hillside the delicate lavender, Crocus Tomma- 
sinianuSf running here and there among the snow- 
drops. How I have longed to see the flora of 
the Alpine meadows, to see the crocus fields of 
the Alpine slopes ! FlemweH's lovely pictures, 
as well as many pens besides his, have given me 
this desire. Yet in that absurdly wild imagina- 
tion which I fear is mine I see a hint of these 
longed-for sights as I gaze now upon my white 
and palest violet flowers of March. Did not these 
snowdrops a week ago raise their buds and green 
leaves through a sheet of ice ? Is not the effect of 
little tree and little flower so scaled as to suggest 
a much larger and more important picture ? The 
least animate object coming into it disturbs that 
scale, of course, just as they say a robin perch- 
ing upon the miniature Matterhorn ruins so tragi- 
cally the effect of the renowned rock-garden of 

74 



SUMMER THOUGHTS IN WINTER 

the late Sir Frank Crisp at Friar Park, his place 
upon the Thames. 

And here before spring has fairly opened I begin 
planning for another year. *0n this earth/ says 
Margaret Symonds in that rare book of hers, 
'*Days Spent on a Doge's Farm," 'one season is 
usually spent in looking for signs of the next.' 
More planting of the crocus is needed here, to 
give an even more natural-looking picture, a little 
cross-current, so to say, of the lavender; and the 
introduction perhaps of loose groups of 7m reticu- 
lata for the sake of its green spears alone, as the 
snowdrops and this species of crocus bloom much 
earlier than the iris. A few feet away from my 
Alpine valley the iris leaves are in plenty and a 
more determined plant I never hope to see. Its 
green leaves have pierced as with needle-points 
thick, wet masses of last year's fallen leaves, and, 
as the irises are here in rounding groups, the effect 
is of brown pin-cushions studded with green pins. 

How well Walter Prichard Eaton has said, for 
us who live the year round in the country, that 
spring does not, as many people think, begin with 
apple-blossoms; but when its bagpipes, like those 
at Lucknow, *were heard far off and faint,' 
*when the little frogs pipe from each warm pool; 

75 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

when the color of trees large and small changes 
with the uprunning of the sap; when the swamps 
are encarnadined with dogwood stems.' 

Now with this renaissance, with this renewal, 
how can we who garden fail to put forth a welcom- 
ing hand to what is new in our own province ? New 
plants, new flowers, new shrubs, new trees. We 
are as sheep-like in horticulture as we are in dress. 
No sooner does one town cover itself with Spircea 
Vanhouttei as with a garment, than another fol- 
lows suit. In consequence, and even in these 
enlightened days, the American May and June in 
many localities have taken on a shroudlike pallor 
of dead-white bloom. I know the value of this 
shrub. I can fancy the furore which must have 
followed its arrival and distribution in this coun- 
try, but we have too much of it. So, too, with 
the two barberries, vulgaris and Thunbergii. Our 
suburbs and larger and smaller towns deserve such 
names as Spireatown, Barberryville. And the 
monotony is inexcusable now, for every list con- 
tains beautiful variants on these shrubs and on 
others, such as syringa, philadelphus, hydrangea, 
lonicera, so lovely, so unusual in beauty, and so 
new that the variety we need to save us is not 
only here but of the highest possible interest and 

76 



SUMMER THOUGHTS IN WINTER 

order. Who that has seen any collection of the 
newer lilacs (syringa) in flower would be satisfied 
to have only the common form ? Marie Le Graye, 
Mme. Emile Lemoine, the single and double whites, 
Souvenir de Ludwig Spaeth, Toussaint I'Ouver- 
ture, the wondrous purples. Belle de Nancy (almost 
a blue), Philemon, with its great clusters of pink- 
ish mauve — the list is only hinted at here. Lis- 
ten to this description of Syringa sweginzovni 
superba : *This superb plant was introduced from 
Central China through the Paris Museum. Its 
leaves, of moderate size, are dull green and sharply 
pointed; its flowers, borne in long clusters cover- 
ing the whole shrub in June, are of a soft flesh 
color and deliciously fragrant; it is one of the 
loveliest shrubs we possess.' Or this bit concern- 
ing Syringa Emile Gentil : *Good thyrses of large, 
full, and imbricated flowers, bright cobalt blue, a 
very rare shade among lilacs.' 

Who that has once stood entranced before the 
wonderful flowers of Viburnum Carlesii, that has 
breathed its sweet and pungent fragrance, could 
remain content to possess only Viburnum opulus ? 
Why sit in dull satisfaction beside the ubiqui- 
tous barberries aforesaid when such a marvel as 
Wilson's barberry, when the charms of the several 

77 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

/ 

cotoneasters, are easily purchasable ? Until these 
things are seen by one's own eye, however, it is 
difficult to interest the individual in them. The 
new philadelphus tribe, the new diervillas — these 
are like the products of a dream ; the new deutzias, 
like their originals or types, but so much more 
beautiful, more distinguished. 

We have passed in this country through various 
periods of fashion in gardening and in shrub plant- 
ing. In driving through towns of various States 
one notices this. There was, of course, the ob- 
noxious time when the golden-leaved shrub was 
the thing; a later period, when the blue spruce 
predominated as a feature of the planting. In a 
town on the highroads of New York I could not 
help thinking that the motto of its inhabitants at 
one time must have been "A Weeping Elm for 
Every Home." Similarly in parts of New Eng- 
land every dooryard in countless numbers of local- 
ities has its hydrangea, a single specimen always, 
and sometimes grown to a height and fulness of 
inflorescence which makes it a strikingly interest- 
ing spectacle. These things go in waves — waves 
of interest in the thing seen — my moral from this 
being: let more of us indulge from time to time in 
what is new. Let us try arrangements of new 

78 



SUMMER THOUGHTS IN WINTER 

and unknown flowers in our borders; new shrubs 
at the edges of our grassy lawns. 

We really have no excuse for staying too long by 
the older things. Such beauties are now oflPered in 
at least three lists I could mention — lovely things 
from China, Japan, Korea, beautiful hybrids from 
France — that it would be absurd to say that these 
subjects were not to be had here. Is there a 
woman among gardeners who has not an open 
eye for lovely trailing things for decorative use 
with fruit upon her table ^ To such I should like 
to say that if she has been satisfied hitherto with 
Ampelopsis Veitchus terminal garlands of finely set 
and colored leaves, what will be her delight when 
she sees for the first time Ampelopsis aconitifolia — 
that perfect beauty from Korea ^ Absolutely hardy, 
tested now for long in the Arnold Arboretum, 
it is so lovely in the form and color of its leaf, so 
graceful in its way of growing, that one cannot 
too highly commend it. No one should dispraise 
— to coin a word — the old and ever beautiful 
Hall's honeysuckle, but there is a richness of color 
in the flowers of the newer Lonicera Heckrottii 
which fits it far better than the old favorite for 
a place against a warm house or garden wall of 
mellow brick. Why not use these charming op- 

79 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

portunities for change and for the enlarging of 
our knowledge ? 

Two years ago Lythrum roseum, Perry's variety, 
was placed in the garden on trial. Eight plants 
were set, in balanced fashion, with Phlox Mme. 
Paul Dutrie before them, two of the lythrums or 
loosestrifes about a foot apart in each group. 
With what eagerness I watched the development 
of these new things, and what was my delight in 
finding them more beautiful, more valuable, than 
anything thus tested for several years ! If any- 
thing could be more satisfactory for intense heat, 
too, than this lythrum I have yet to see it. Under 
the hottest of suns it flourishes, a pillar of flower 
by day. In fact, it is almost too flourishing, so 
vigorous is its growth and so spreading its roots in 
one season. Five feet is its height in this garden; 
its brilliant mauve flowers, in slender spikes, come 
into bloom as delphiniums pass; the pale grayish- 
mauve buds are as charming as the flowers, and 
with the delphinium blues near make an original 
and delicate contrast in color. Another of its 
virtues is its beauty while fading. Until the last 
floret is gone from the stem — and that is, I should 
say, perhaps three weeks from the beginning of 
bloom — it is entirely lovely in color. If one 
should wish to reduce the height of the plant for 

80 



SUMMER THOUGHTS IN WINTER 

a certain spot, the root can easily be divided in 
autumn by chopping, exactly as one would with a 
hardy phlox or aster. In great heat, watering the 
lythrum is advisable, to prevent its lower leaves 
changing to scarlet and thus fatally affecting the 
appearance of this remarkable plant. 

Turning from a tall plant to a low-growing one, 
I mention Salvia virgata nemorosa as a most lovely 
addition to the list of deep-purple flowers. I once 
thought no salvia could compete for beauty with 
S. farinaceay but here is another quite as good in 
its way, and which with its violet flowers should 
make a very pretty companion for ;S'. farinacea's 
pale lavender-blue. S. virgata nemorosa has about 
eighteen inches of height, and flings forth in July 
countless little spikes of purple bloom, very rich 
and arresting. Its perfect hardiness in a severe 
climate and its interesting color add to its value. 

Purple and mauve in flowers have such beautiful 
garden possibilities. Better than in any picture 
I have seen are the uses of mauve shown in the 
color illustration "Leonardslea in June," from that 
sumptuous new book, "Rhododendrons," by Mil- 
lais, recently published in England. It is by 
studying such arrangements that one gets fresh 
conceptions of what may be done with flowering 
shrubs. 

81 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Some one — was it Eden Philpotts ? — has said 
that it seems to be the general course of amateur 
gardening to turn in one's middle age to the more 
permanent forms of vegetation, trees and shrubs. 
I confess to a feeling of regret that my earlier 
years were not devoted to study and experiment 
with these glorious subjects, and would advise 
young amateurs to begin their decorative garden- 
ing with shrubs and trees. Thus they build upon 
a horticultural rock. The foundation is properly 
laid. A tree or shrub may be grown from seed, as 
Professor Sargent would always have us do it; 
the expense in any case is exceedingly slight, the 
care practically nil compared with that of flowers. 
If all young people interested in gardening, as 
happily so many are now, would first look into the 
principles of design, of planning of gardens, then 
inform themselves concerning the structural green 
of their garden, its trees and shrubs, and finally 
throw down their garlands of flowers, there would 
be beautiful because logical results. Most of us 
begin at the wrong end in this wonderful art. I 
confess this to be my own sorrowful experience, 
and would warn every one away from such a 
course of errors as my own. 



8S 



VI 



EARLIER FLOWERS 



It froze hard last night; . . . The contents of an 
English June are hay and ice, orange-flowers and rheuma- 
tisms. 

— Horace Walpole to Agnes and Mary Berry, Straw- 
berry Hill, June 14, 1791. 

Though my lawn is burnt and my peas and beans and 
strawberries scorched, I will bear it with patience till the 
harvest is got in. 

— Horace Walpole to the Honorable H. S. Conway, 
Strawberry Hill, July 17, 1793. 

I am determined never to cut my grass again till Octo- 
ber, the only month whose honour one can trust; June 
always ruins one in hay and coals; I crouch every evening 
over the fire. 

— Horace Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossoey, 
Strawberry Hill, July 1, 1789. 



VI 

EARLIER FLOWERS 

T is May, when summer first is leafy, when the 
young oaks are opening with slow reticence 
their rosy leaflets. When one such oak stands 
alone in the freshly ploughed field of our region 
its young foliage is almost lost to sight against 
the earth, so nearly do the rose-colored leaflets 
and the pinkish soil come together in color. The 
vivid greens of elm and beech have a freshness 
which is almost a moisture, comparable to that 
freshest of all things, an unfolding butterfly. One 
week earlier there were blooming the shadbush, 
the wild plum, those wraiths of the spring wood; 
and now and again were seen in young leaf, 
colonies of the white birch. It was a fortunate 
thought of the scene-painter for Massenet's deli- 
cious opera of Griseledis, that in the prologue the 
young shepherd should come piping through a 
grove of these slender and delicate trees. 

In turning homeward after an absence in May, 
how one watches the things in bloom, to get a 
flowery advance bulletin of the condition of one's 

85 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

own flowers. A few hours' journey northward 
from south to central Michigan has from the car 
window numberless blooming sign-posts; at first 
petals are falling from the apple-trees; lilacs are 
at their utmost point of full bloom. Farther 
north the apple-blossoms are fixed along the 
boughs, the lilac thyrses are darker at the tips, a 
sign that buds are yet to open; and in the woods 
there is a delicate laciness of foliage which gives 
one hope of still seeing the fullest spring beauty 
at home. 

*And in the season of perfect and frailest beauty. 

Pear blossom broke and the lilacs' waxen cones, 
And a tranced laburnum trailing its veils of yellow. 
Tenderly drooped over the ivied stones. 

'The lilacs browned, a breath dried the laburnum. 

The swollen peonies scattered the earth with blood. 
And the rhododendrons shed their sumptuous mantles. 
And the marshalled irises unsceptred stood.' 

A good spring planting noticed in 1918 but not 
in full flower till early May because of the singu- 
lar lateness of that season, was of crocus and 
scilla, all below and among old bushes of Japanese 
quince in faint leaf. Fortunately for the har- 
monies of this picture, the quince-buds had suf- 
fered from winter cold and no flowers had ap- 
se 



EARLIER FLOWERS 

peared. The white crocus, Kathleen Parlow, was 
here seen running into masses of blue Scilla 
sihirica, with groups of yellow crocus near by; be- 
yond all these one saw reaches of purple and 
white. This gay color covered some twenty-five 
square feet, and the blues lost themselves in the 
distance, trailing among young Juniperus sahina. 
Here and there among these scillas, which have 
naturalized themselves with remarkable freedom, 
were groups of narcissi in bud. Yellowish buds 
of hyacinth Adelaide Ristori, too, were here. The 
white crocus nestling among the blue flowers and 
running through them in the manner of a free 
woodland planting, made a picture to remember; 
the tall blue bells of scilla were all among the white 
flowers, actually hung over them in places. This 
was the order of colors as I set it down hastily at 
the time: deep purple, a little white among, then 
purple, yellow, blue, next lavender, yellow again 
with clusters of purple, then white with a little 
yellow beyond, the white running off into a field 
of vivid blue. The purples, lavenders, whites, 
and yellows were all crocuses, the blues that purest 
blue of Scilla sibirica. This planting might readily 
be carried out in annual flowers, to bloom in early 
summer or midsummer. It furnishes, too, the 

87 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

suggestion for a whole small garden, for by the 
exercise of ingenuity and some hunting through 
plant lists, flowers may be had to bloom together 
in the later season as these do in an earlier one. 
This early spring group just described is love- 
liness itself; it is again referred to as I now write 
of a planting at the edge of the grass nearest the 
street from the house, which has been and is a 
source of continued trouble and regret to me. 
This planting is made up of ancient bushes of 
Japanese quince, which have not done well, of 
one or two fine young seedling elms, a mulberry- 
tree and two or three tall old maples shading 
the street and headed out when young in the ar- 
boreally ignorant fashion prevailing in our part 
of Michigan some thirty years ago. A few 
struggling plants of Juniperus sabina mentioned 
above complete for me the misery of this plant- 
ing. All winter it is a horror to me; but the mo- 
ment the robin's song is heard the dogwood takes 
on its wondrous carmine from the sap upflowing 
— it is the European osier dogwood — thou- 
sands of crocuses in loveliest patterns bloom be- 
low the still bare stems and twigs; marsh mari- 
golds show their yellow in a low and moist part 
of the ground, and the little uncurling fronds of 

88 



EARLIER FLOWERS 

Spircea astilbe, which are thickly planted below 
all these shrubs and trees, lend their own interest 
to this place. These little lambkins of spring 
flowers are soon followed by daffodils and hya- 
cinths, late low scillas blooming through veils of 
the young green of leaflets on the boughs above 
them, and I even have at the edge of the border 
that noblest of all pink Darwin tulips, Mrs. Ker- 
rell, with Scilla campanulata Excelsior in myriads 
near by. From then on the border is a good mass 
of foliage and a fair screen from the street. It is 
in winter that the place is unbearable. I know 
what I should do — consult a landscape-gardener 
of reputation and get a proper planting plan for 
that bit of ground. But, to lose the lovely spring 
picture now always to be expected, is too great a 
test of self-denial. Every one knows that little 
colonies of spring flowers must be left undisturbed 
year after year, to show their full beauty. Only 
thus is an effect of naturalness to be got. 

The reverse of the medal is the actual opposite 
of this space across the grass nearest the border 
described. It is a grouping of shrubs against the 
house itself, and gives as much pleasure in all 
seasons as the other gives pain. To live with new 
shrubs for fifteen years, suddenly to have a flood 

89 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

of light thrown upon their use and beauty — this 
has been an experience to remember and to share 
with others. The shrubs in question stand in an 
irregular planting against the eastern wall of the 
house. At the north end of the wall is the main 
door of the house, very insignificant, as in houses 
of the quieter English type. Such doors are used 
only for incoming and outgoing; why should they 
be important.? South of the door are the five 
muUioned lights of a music-room window, then 
two open arches at the end of a loggia. The 
length of this wall is perhaps forty-five feet. 
Here is its planting to be most warmly com- 
mended to those to whom a succession of white 
and mauve bloom may be valuable. And, first, 
against the open arches, as a screen from the 
near-by street, stands a glorious tree, Philadelphus 
grandifloruSi an ancient mock orange, brought 
twelve years ago from a near-by village, a tree 
some forty years old and twenty feet high. Its 
twisting stems are beautiful when hung with ice 
in winter, when snow and ice are its garland; and 
in June, when other garlands of a whiteness, 
warmth, and fragrance beyond description crown 
its branches, it is a marvel of beauty. Below this 
white tree are other younger Philadelphus bushes, 

90 



%%-/-r *••• 



; >'*' "^■'^rf'"""' 



TREE, ARCH, AND FLOWER 



EARLIER FLOWERS 

and to the left, as we face the wall, a group of 
syringas or lilac Rothomagensis, the Rouen lilac. 

Next come some fine flowering currants or ribes, 
then Spirwa Vanhouttei, next to the right Hydran- 
gea arhorescens, interspersed by the rich greens of 
Mahonia, and, finally, flanking the doorway just 
mentioned, the graceful sprays of the aptly named 
Philadelphus Avalanche. In the order of their 
blooming thus they come: first the Rouen lilac; 
and by the doorway are the groups of that charm- 
ing Darwin tulip, Agneta, which carries the mauve 
of the lilac across green leaf-masses to the visitor's 
standing place; next the white spirea, the white 
currant, the white mock orange, with the great 
white tree the latest of these. Avalanche, at the 
door, now welcomes all who come with graceful 
showers of white but little fragrance, and when 
Avalanche's beauty is departed the green mounds 
of the hydrangea-buds slowly turn to cream, and 
the dear sequence is complete. 

I wish I might make you who read see the love- 
liness of this changing picture. These white 
flowers melt like snows into each other. What a 
marvel is that power of nature to turn the eye 
from what is past its best to a fresh and flowering 
beauty ! It is such gentle management — the one 

91 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

who looks does not feel himself urged or driven; 
yet is there a compelling force to equal that of 
beauty ? 

This shrub-planting can be reproduced in little. 
One of each of these things, with the possible ex- 
ception of the hydrangea, where five or seven 
shall be the least, would in ten years, arranged 
loosely as I have suggested and given plenty of 
room (a thing I never give to anything and am 
always regretting too late!), will produce that 
ravishing and reviving effect of white bloom that 
I have endeavored to describe. If I were to re- 
plant, I should leave out the lilac. It is interest- 
ing enough, but would be better elsewhere, and 
the coolness of white and green alone is unsur- 
passable. The period of bloom in this border 
covers at least a month, possibly more — from 
May 20 to June 20 — in an average season and the 
latitude of Boston. 

As I look about at the little we have accom- 
plished in growing plants, shrubs, and trees in 
sixteen years' work on two acres, some of it looks 
so unutterably poor to me that I wish to cut down 
and pull out much and begin again. There are 
thin, ugly plantings, places where foliage screens 
should be yet none exist, bad masses of stuff, 



EARLIER FLOWERS 

ugly arrangements of shrubs. The need of space 
is sometimes responsible for such ugliness, where 
one's ground is small; but more often the reason 
is that I forget the larger aspect of the place while 
busy with small plantings. As an example: no 
more room last autumn for peonies, yet a small 
collection had been ordered and was due to arrive 
— a question where to put them. All shrub bor- 
ders, before which peonies nearly always look 
well, but where the fine collector would not plant, 
had been long since packed to suffocation, not 
only with their own roots but with spring bulbs 
and perennial plants too, mainly with foxglove, 
peony, crocus, and daffodil. Looking about for 
room, I decided upon a stretch of grass in the 
far southwest corner of the expanse of orchard 
before the house. Here two or three old apple- 
trees had died and been removed. The corner 
was well screened in by masses of willow, elder, 
dogwood, and other flowering shrubs, and a little 
plantation of Japanese flowering cherries was 
started in the open lawn. The grass was hardly 
grass; chickweed had overflowed the spot. Here, 
because of the open position, no large tree roots in 
the way, and not too much shade, we placed such 
treasures as Kelway's Glorious and others in our 

93 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK / 

list. We had dug and prepared the circular spots 
for the peonies the spring before, so that no iieat- 
ing from natural fertilizer could injure the roots, 
and in the following manner we dug the circles for 
each plant. An iron band has been bent in a 
circle two feet in diameter. The band is thin 
and has one end sharpened. It is not closed and 
can be spread to include a wider space if wanted. 
When laid on the grass, its sharp edge down, we 
place it where we want our plant to stand, and 
hammer it into the ground. A perfect circle of 
turf is then lifted, the soil prepared, and, instead 
of manure to protect the newly planted peony- 
tubers through winter, the segments of sod from 
the top of the circular space are replaced, forming 
an excellent protection. 

I have now wandered into a detailed planting; 
the bearing of all this upon the general effect of 
lawn and orchard is still to be seen. It may be 
a perpetration of ugliness which I shall regret, but 
with little-flowering cherries first, and large-flower- 
ing peonies later, with great philadelphuses bloom- 
ing near the peonies the moment those handsome 
flowers are full, we may expect a picture not all 
incongruous. At all events, there will be less of 
that little villain the chickweed. 

94 



EARLIER FLOWERS 

There are, I fancy, peony enthusiasts who exist 
from one June to the next but who may be said 
really to live only in that lovely month. It is 
easy to feel a sympathy for this group on first 
seeing that great peony Therese. There is a deli- 
cious generosity of form in this fine flower which 
first commends it to the eye. It is built on large, 
bold lines. Its petals, from the simple, unfrilled 
guards to the incurving ones of the crown, are all 
simple and fine in outline. The color is a cooler 
pink than that of Galle, but as pale, and the cen- 
tre of the flower has a suggestion of cream-white. 
Never have I so admired a peony on sight. It 
has an enchantment of its own and one which is 
indescribable, this fair, pale flower. Those broad 
silken petals, that noble contour of the whole 
bloom, its faint perfume, give it a high place among 
the members of its fine companions in beauty. 
The peony, in the illustration opposite page 90, 
is, I think, M. Jules Elie; but the real reason for 
publishing this picture is to call attention to the 
lifting of the eye, from grass to flower, from flower 
to trellised arch, and thence to the boughs of a tall 
elm. Here is a little composition in living things, 
not planned, but with an interest of its own to 
those who watch its growth. 

95 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Lady Alexandra Duff, before me as I write, is 
so often described that words upon its whorl of 
petals seem almost absurd. A whorl it is, and, 
for its general look of having taken shape under 
the influence of whirling breezes, it calls to my 
mind the cut fringed paper pinwheel of my child- 
hood. Strong is the contrast in this great semi- 
double flower between the smooth, large guard 
petals of blush-pink and the frilled, feathered, 
cut, and crumpled ones of the collar or inner circle. 
All this is centred by golden-yellow stamens, 
which bristle from the centre of the peony. 
The whole effect is so striking that one cannot 
wonder at the celebrity attained by this flower. 
These peonies — the four or five I now describe — 
stand in a jar of rough ware from Capri. The 
jar is some ten inches high, fluted horizontally, 
and has a faint suggestion of pink in its pale-gray 
clay. The outer petals of Lady Alexandra Duff 
exactly "corresmatch," as a charming older woman 
of my acquaintance was wont to say, with the 
tone of the rough ware, and the handsome peony 
leaves are rich and fresh beyond words, as a foil 
to both flowers and their container. Here among 
others in water before me, is Ginette, so fresh and 
fair, the long, boat-shaped guard-petals framing 

96 



EARLIER FLOWERS 

in a cluster of fringed and cut collar and crown- 
petals of the tenderest flesh pink. There is a cer- 
tain bright elegance about this flower. Here, too, 
is Alexandre Dumas, so rich, so striking in its 
deep-pink guards and its ruff of amber and tuft 
of tall crown-petals standing away from the ruff. 
Fresh interest in the peony mounting high as 
these notes were transcribed, I inquired diligently 
of Mrs. Edward Harding as to her opinion of the 
three best of the family. Her answer follows: 
"Three peonies stand absolutely at the top, un- 
touched, unequalled : They are Le Cygne, Solange, 
and Walter Faxon. The next rank so closely in 
quality and beauty that it is difficult to draw a 
line. Any three of the following varieties, added 
to the three which I have just named, will give 
you the six finest in the world. You have only to 
close your eyes and choose, or select according to 
your special predilection for tint, form, or fra- 
grance. Mme. Emile Lemoine, Mrs. Edward 
Harding, Festiva maxima. Glorious, Milton Hill, 
La Fee, Avalanche, Baroness Schroeder, and 
Therese. Doubtless there will be clamorous criti- 
cism because Therese is not named in the first 
three. But large, fresh, free-blooming, and beau- 
tiful as this variety is, in my opinion it still can- 

97 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

not touch Walter Faxon for gorgeousness and 
purity of coloring, or for useful qualities as a cut 
flower." 

There is in my possession a shallow, rather oval 
dish, an old Italian piece. The paste is gray, the 
decoration simple and delicate, a dull blue. Never 
have I liked flowers better in this than when this 
spring it held that glorious tulip of glorious name, 
Illuminator, with young peony leaves among the 
tulips, with lily-of-the-valley-like sprays of double 
arabis to give brilliant light to the group, and 
twigs of youngest leaflets of white birch to make 
the mass less solid in effect. Incomparably rich 
was this arrangement; more sumptuous color can- 
not be. The tulip of flaming orange and yellow, 
the bronzes of peony foliage and of birch, and the 
scintillating touches of white made a most satis- 
factory indoor arrangement. Why not a garden 
of these same things, if peonies will permit the 
intrusion of the three companions near their 
roots? Some gardener will cry out against my 
sacrifice of young peony branches, and, indeed, I 
confess to a feeling of regret here. I thought of 
those who will not withhold their hand from baby 
lamb when such is desired for a lady's cloak; yet 
I picked my peonies and mean to watch the be- 

98 



EARLIER FLOWERS 

havior of those plants which have been thus ruth- 
lessly thinned for the early beauty of a dinner- 
table. At the moment the garden is rich with 
color, and campanulas in three varieties furnish 
the most of this. By far the most effective of 
these three is Campanula ladiflora, which rises in 
purple clouds to a height of four to five feet. 
Next in color value comes Campanula medium^ the 
Canterbury bell, never larger or finer than this 
year, this in four hues — bright purple, lavender 
of the same type as that of the beautiful August- 
blooming Lycoris that iridescent lavender, cool 
pale-pink, and white. The third campanula is 
'persicifolia, both lavender and white. The grace 
and slenderness of this flower make it more 
precious, if possible, than the other garden cam- 
panulas. How often have I wished for a pale rose- 
color in this species ! Let us be thankful, how- 
ever, for the present lavender and white mercies. 
The purple of the magnificent Campanula ladi- 
flora is in itself a thought too violent, but as it is 
now, dense masses of it in the garden, tempered 
by enchanting spires of Delphinium belladonna and 
other tall pale-blues and mauves, it gives a depth 
of splendid color to the green-hedged parterre 
that nothing else can supply. Next year — oh, 

99 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

that magic phrase ! — I shall let the charming 
perennial digitalis stand below C. lactiflora, for 
the pale straw-yellow spikes of foxglove are lovely 
with the latter's purple bells. 

Look for one moment toward that lovely bit of 
color in flowers lightly raised above a group of 
white Campanula persicifolia; it is a delicate pic- 
ture of palest blue and cool pink. Three plants 
from pots, of the fine sweet pea Henry Ohn, were 
set among these Delphinium belladonnas in late 
May. Now these sweet peas have really the effect 
of rose-colored butterflies fluttering about the 
blue lengths of the delphinium. The wet season 
did much for this happy achievement, I am con- 
vinced. The sweet pea, with its love for coolness 
and for water, has vigorously responded to this 
type of summer weather, and the result is lovely 
beyond words. In the autumn of 1920 this gar- 
den was entirely refilled with fresh soil from an 
old meadow-bottom, and all the plants reset. 
Perennials were divided; peonies, delphiniums, 
phloxes, mercilessly separated or chopped apart; 
small bits replaced in ordered groups; there seemed 
to be endless vacant spaces. When we were reset- 
ting the pieces of perennial roots, spacing them 
for the most part a foot to eighteen inches apart, 

100 



EARLIER FLOWERS 

I thought with pleasure of the room I should have 
for annuals this year; more than ever before, for 
I said: "These roughly treated things will not 
do well next summer; I hardly expect any of them 
to bloom. If they live and show green I shall be 
grateful." Never was there a more complete sur- 
prise, or series of surprises; for, owing to a season 
of unprecedented rains and to the influence of the 
fresh earth, the subjects in the garden have out- 
done themselves. All winter, as I have said, I 
dreamed of the pleasure it would be to give an- 
nuals pride of place. Many Canterbury bells 
were distributed in balanced color groups in Sep- 
tember, and the beautiful heliotrope Elizabeth 
Dennison, the prize-winner of the San Francisco 
Exposition, was liberally planted this spring. A 
rearrangement of color was planned, the intention 
for midsummer and late season, a time of mauve, 
violet, and white flowers — for earliest blooming 
the salmon-pinks and lavenders of a color plan 
not new to me or to most gardens; Oriental pop- 
pies, 7m pallida dalmatica, and lupines of bluish 
lavender; this shifting to an early July effect to 
be secured by the lavish use of Canterbury bells 
in the three pure hues of violet, cool pink, and 
white, with the tall Campanula lactiflora to give 

101 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

variety in purple height. Now pyrethums over- 
lap upon this bloom and very good they are there- 
with. The white polemonium and the gray- 
leaved stachys both perform their part, with tall 
flowering stems and foliage of the beauty peculiar 
to such plants. White and purple stocks thickly 
blooming, because set out in May from pots, make 
lovely bushy foregrounds for the campanulas be- 
fore which they stand. Stocks in violet, lavender, 
and white only were used, the buff foxglove, quan- 
tities of deep-purple and clear-white petunias, 
purple and rose-colored verbenas, with here and 
there a dash of mignonette and white zinnia seed 
thrown in. Already in June, under the soft in- 
fluence of constant rains, the garden is full to 
overflowing with color, and never, I fondly think, 
have transplanted flowers done so well for any 
one. Heucheras especially flourish as not before 
in years, all moved and divided in the autumn. 
These, with their bright coral flowers, I admit are 
bad with the harsh purples of the Canterbury 
bells, but there are among the heucheras some 
varied groups of sweet-william. Miss Jekyll's be- 
loved darkest red and a few of the gay Newport 
pink. The picture is irresistible, and, though it 
truly does offend in relation to one other part of 

102 



EARLIER FLOWERS 



CHIEF SUBJECT 


SEASON OP 
BLOOM 


COLOR 


COMBINE WITH : 


Buddleia variabilis superba 
Daphne Cneorum 


July-Sept. 


Lavender pink 


Japanese Iris 


May 


Rose pink 


Mertensia virgi- 

nica 
Iberis sempervi- 

rens 
Narcissus Barrii 

conspicuus 


Gladiolus Primulinus Hybrids 


Six weeks after 
planting 


Yellow 
Pink 
Old rose 


Gypsophila panicu- 

lata 
Ageratum 
Zinnias, copper 

and yellow 


Helianthemum Salmon Queen 


June 


Salmon pink 


Portulaca (pink 
and yellow 
shade) 

Lobelia (annual 
deep blue) 


Iris Chester Hunt 
Juniata 
Albert Victor 
Pallida dalmatica 
Isolene 
Mt. Penn 

Lent A. Williamson 
Mildred Presby 
Anna Farr 
Minnehaha 

Wyomissing 


June 


Dark and pale blue 
Clear blue 
Blue and lavender 
Clear pale blue 
Orchid pink 
Pink and deep pink 
Lavender pink 
Plum and pale plum 
White, veined blue 
White, shaded yel- 
low 
White, suffused pink 


Columbine, Pteo- 
nia, Heuchera, 
Linum perrene 


Lithospermum prostratum 
Heavenly Blue 


May- June 


Turquoise blue 


Cerastium 
Stachys lanata 
Aubrietia 


Lycoris squamigera 


August 


Fink shaded blue 


Amsonia salicifolia 


Pseonia La Perle 
Lady Du£F 
La Fayette 
Jules Dessert 
Gigantea 
Adonise Superba 
Festiva Maxima 
Mons. Martin Cahusac 


May- June 


Lavender pink 
Flesh pink 
Lavender pink 
Pale rose 
Rose pink 
Cerise 
White 
Red 


Mauve Iris 
Lupine 
Foxglove 
Columbine 


Phlox Elizabeth Campbell 
Mme. Paul Dutrie 
Peachblow 
America 
Rynstroom 
Miss Lingard 
Jeanne D'Arc 
Tapis Blanc 
Antoine Buchner 
Mrs. Jenkins 
Crepuscule 
Le Mahdi 
Iris 
Pharon 


July-August 


Salmon pink 
Blue pink 
Mauve pink 
Pink with Tyrian eye 
Rose pink 
White (early) 
White (mid-seaaon) 
White dwarf 
White (mid-season) 
White (late) 
Silver mauve 
Dark bluish violet 
Bluish violet 
Mauve with white 
eye 


Gypsophila pani- 

culata 
Eryngium 
Echinops 
Blue Salvias 


Salvia farinacea 


June-Sept. 


Mauve 


Antirrhinum 

Zinnia 

Ageratum 


Thalictrum glaucum 


May-June 


Yellow 


Delphinium 


Viola Apricot 


May 


Apricot yellow 


Primrose 
Aubrietia 
Anchusa myoso- 
tidiflora 



103 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

the garden, it is in itself so lovely, so suggestive, 
that it must remain as a useful idea, though a bit 
too red a spot for ocular comfort at present. More 
than other flowers the heuchera needs space. 
Moving does not seem to trouble it, but room and 
good soil, as well as full sun, are essential. 

No more delightfully suggestive table in color 
arrangement have I seen than that by Miss Isa- 
bella Pendleton, which I am allowed to use. (See 
precedmg page.) 



104 



VII 
LATER FLOWERS 



You had better return to town like me, and put an 
erratum at the end of your almanac, for June read Janu- 
ary. Summer was made to be felt and enjoyed, not to 
be taken for better or worse like a spouse, in whom one 
has no pleasure any longer. 

— Horace Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossort, 
London, June 13, 1782. 



VII 
LATER FLOWERS 

'The winds that dash these August dahlias down, 
And chase the streams of hght across the grass. 
This solemn watery air, like clouded glass. 
This perfume on the terrace bare and brown, 

*Are like the soundless flush of full renown 

That gathers with the gathering years that pass. 
And weaves for happy, glorious life, alas ! 
Of sorrow and of solitude a crown.' 

Edmund Gosse, "Melancholy in the Garden." 

HAVE elsewhere told of a joyful recurrence on 
our place in Michigan of spring colors in au- 
tumn, of groups and thronging crowds of Darwin 
tulips in hues of purple to lavender, merging into 
green summer foliage, to be recalled to memory in 
September by clouds of hardy asters in the self- 
same colors. There is a delicious melancholy in 
this reminder. Yet there is also a hope. The 
asters are a link between spring and spring — notes 
of a music on the autumn air, a music not only 
of a spring gone by, but of one to come. No- 
where have I had a more poignant, more startling 

107 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

reminder of May in October than yesterday, when, 
travelling past a great plantation of larch, I saw 
the forest floor completely carpeted with young 
maples, two to four feet, whose leaves were glow- 
ing, dazzling flame. Instantly my thoughts flew 
to the Arnold Arboretum in azalea time. These 
colors of the little maples repeated actually those 
of the Ghent azaleas and of Azalea Kcempferi 
on the slopes of the Arboretum at the end of May. 
The larch-trees of my Michigan picture were thin 
of foliage. One might easily have mistaken them 
for the budding trees of spring. The illusion was 
complete, a spectacle to strike a chord of joy in 
the heart of any watcher of the earth. 

In my garden last autumn was a beautiful Jap- 
anese anemone, with adjectives too many by three 
for its name (Anemone japonica rosea swperha ele- 
gans). It was a most lovely flower, three and a 
half inches in diameter, of marvellous size, and 
with a perfect circle of yellow stamens held tight 
to the rosy-mauve centre of the flower by a light- 
green button. A most perfect thing this is for 
cutting with buddleias or for growing below them 
for an effect in bluish mauve and cool pink. The 
colors of the anemone are Ridgway, Persian lilac 
to pale Persian lilac; the French chart gives them 

108 



LATER FLOWERS 

as 178-1 and 187-1. Allied to this color Is that 
of the cosmos. By mistake seeds of tall mauve- 
pink cosmos crept or fell into the garden this year. 
In consequence, here are four tall plants of it, 
with wide blooms, more every day. It happens 
that the color which prevails in the library of our 
house is dull blue — blue linen loose-covers and so 
on. Nothing in flowers has ever suited this room 
better than this day's adornment of a great vase 
filled with mauve cosmos, above which spikes of 
Aconitum Wilsonii lift their noble purple heads. 
It is a miracle when one considers the date. But 
what a glory lamps give to this cosmos; by day 
its color is not clear — it has a more or less muddy 
look; at night the warmest, brightest pink glows 
in its petals. 

Turning back a little to the flowers of late sum- 
mer, I find this date: July 21, phloxes, the earli- 
est of the decussatas are now in full beauty. The 
great splashes of color in the garden given by this 
stalwart group of flowers are of interest in July 
and August, and give an objective of no common 
importance when one is rearranging the garden 
in autumn. The scent of them, too, is so fresh, 
clean, and sweet. As for color, I might name 
again a few favorites — Eugene Danzanvilliers, the 

109 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

handsome lavender, never seen to better advan- 
tage than when blue delphiniums' lingering blooms 
lift their heads back of it. Below this pair is a 
very slender small hemerocallis, of a specially 
pale yellow, and lower again a pale calendula. 
This is an uncommonly good group, and phlox is 
its backbone. In considering the forms of phlox 
groups, I am tempted to use terms commonly 
applied to the contour of hills. For example, 
from where I sit three fine varieties form a good 
picture in flowers. Tapis Blanc is the foremost; 
to the left and higher is a rounding peak of the 
large-flowered lavender Antonin Mercie, and be- 
tween these and slightly to the left, a fine flower- 
ing plant of Widar, rich mauve. This forms a 
shoulder in my hills of flowers, and as these soft 
colors rise above each other in noble profusion, 
nothing in plants can give more pleasure. Eliza- 
beth Campbell's perfect pink now shows itself in 
pointed panicles near Lilium regale. Below Tapis 
Blanc, — which, by the way, is most telling this 
year in texture and size of its pure flowers, — 
below this, white phlox in four places, a beauti- 
ful lavender-blue ever-blooming campanula, var. 
alliarioBfolia, from Miss Willmott's seed, is fair to 
look upon from now till frost. The wondrous Re- 
no 



LATER FLOWERS 

gal lily lifts its handsome trumpet among the 
spikes of yet another campanula, latifoKa, and in 
front of these two are the clear, cool, pink flow- 
ers of an annual new to me this year — Sutton's 
Silene, Rose Queen. Balsams, the camellia- 
flowered ones of a very pale flesh-pink, white 
petunias, and another most valuable perennial 
which I owe to seed from the gardens of Warley 
Place, adenophora, make fine foreground plant- 
ings for the campanulas and lilies, and I expect 
much from my first trials of Mignon dahlias, 
white and yellow, strong plants but not yet in 
bud. 

July 20. — Fourteen days of a tropical sun in 
Michigan, a test through which the fine rambler 
rose Excelsa comes forth triumphant. Clusters of 
its deep-pink flowers hang loosely against the 
heated wood of a high green garden -gate, as fresh 
after passing through July's burning fiery furnace 
as though they had opened the day before. 

Ghiselaine de Feligonde, a rambler lately brought 
into the garden, is minutely described elsewhere 
on these pages. But may I repeat a little ? This 
rose is about an inch and a quarter in diameter, 
flat in form, with a thick mat of bright yellow sta- 
mens and a centre of pale yellow; certainly I know 

111 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

of no rambler like this, of none to approach it in 
distinction of color and form. Aviateur Bleriot 
has a similar bud, rich copper color; but its flower 
is less interesting. Again, Ghiselaine de Feligonde 
lacks the delicious fragrance of Aviateur Bleriot. 
Three to four blooms of Ghiselaine are open at 
once, held out on finely stiff stems. What with 
its surprising beauty of flower, its rare color and 
form and its interesting name, a name which 
Maurice Hewlett may have known and used in 
tales of the moyen age, this rose is a distinct addi- 
tion to any garden or collection. Aviateur Bleriot 
is a little bomb-shaped rose, reminding one of 
a quilled dahlia of cream-white, but without the 
upturned quillings of each petal. Here the square 
and tiny petals are spread and slightly reflexed. 
Last week the charm of the garden lay principally 
in the silvery valerian and the violet Campanula 
lactiflora. To-day it is interesting to see some of 
this color persist, but through other media. The 
mantle of the campanula has fallen upon Salvia 
virgata neTRorosa, whose upright violet spikes now 
rise back of Stachys lanata. Beyond the salvia's 
purple stand finely developed plants of the lightest 
of all the Arendsii phloxes, almost white. From 
the ground up the colors run thus — silvery gray, 

112 



LATER FLOWERS 

violet, pearl-white. Here is a capital group. 
The valerians are fast forming seed; Clematis recta 
still pours its cascades of cream-white flowers 
and buds down before opening delphiniums, and 
in stated places low-spreading clusters of pink 
ramblers brighten the garden, Ellen Poulson, 
Louise Welter, and the dwarf crimson ramblers, 
which shall in August be replaced by white flower- 
ing ones, Yvonne Rabier perhaps. 

Cimicifuga simplex, established now after three 
years in its place, blooms freely. Its tall, slim, 
creamy spikes give welcome variety of line in time 
of phloxes. I sometimes fancy that snake-flower, 
not snake-root, would be the better name for these 
flowers if they behave elsewhere as here. In 
nearly every raceme there is a rectangular bend 
toward the top. This i^ actually a slight defect. 
Can it be due to dry weather, which we have had 
in full measure this year.^ Or is it, so to say, 
congenital? However, Cimicifuga simplex is 
graceful, distinguished, lovely. A color arrange- 
ment of flowers of quiet beauty is the tall spiral 
mignonette, violet petunia beside it, with the 
hyacinth-flowered lavender candytuft in bloom 
below the two. 

There is near me a little garden whose dimen- 

113 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

sions cannot be more than eighty by thirty feet. 
This garden lies in the inner corner of a corner 
lot. Around two of its sides, the long one to the 
north and the short one to the east, is a screen of 
closely planted Lombardy poplars, these backed 
by the more definite boundary of a green-painted 
wooden fence. The side to the south is outlined 
by an excellently designed trellis, painted also a 
dull green, in the centre of whose length is also a ■ 
gateway. The narrow end to the west is open, 
except for the high shrubs on either side of a pas- 
sage of turf. Lady Gay rambler roses are hung 
lightly along the treillage, and at the moment at 
which I write, the second week in September, a 
charming array of flowers is in bloom. Here is 
a group of zinnias of a remarkable tone of rich 
buff, Isabellina by name; around these cluster 
violet petunias, while in front are stocks, heuch- 
era foliage and that of stachys, as well as lilac 
alyssum; the pretty annual delphiniums are in 
their second bloom, pink phloxes and the laven- 
der salviq. farinacea, as well as ageratum, give 
added beauty, and against the tall poplar screen 
Artemisia ladiflora spreads its lovely self like a 
fountain in full play. To the left of the artemisias 
are Buddleias, with their violet flowers, while the 

114 



LATER FLOWERS 

pale-blue Salvia azurea flourishes to the right of 
the artemisia bloom. Below these three tall 
plants pale-pink zinnias create a delicate fore- 
ground for the taller group. Where the artemisias 
stand they are at their best; poplars back of them, 
before them groups of lower flowers or foliage. 
They have such space as allows them to spread 
till the plant is of a loose fan-shape. No pearls 
of orient would I take for the pearls of the arte- 
misia, strung in creamy beauty along their 
delicate spraying stems. They have a grace un- 
matched by any other flowers of early September. 
I have long had this artemisia in the garden, but 
always too near other plants. Not till I saw this 
in my neighbor's charming beds did I realize its 
ultimate loveliness, the added beauty given it 
by perfect freedom. Its picture is shown op- 
posite page 116 and again opposite page 246, where 
it appears beyond the double rose-pink poppy, 
whose seed I always save in quantity. Unfortu- 
nately, its graceful top is cut off in the first picture, 
but the pretty habit of growth and bloom is there. 
The sunflower open below it is of the very palest 
yellow; it is Sutton's Primrose Queen, an annual; 
and the cluster of lily-like bloom to the left is 
Lycoris Squamigera, in tones of lavender and of 

115 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

pink. To the right stalks and leaves of balsams, 
the camellia-flowered type, are seen, while to the 
extreme left is a lovely though failing spike of 
Salvia sclarea. The grouping of the three main 
flowers in the picture is distinctly good, and might 
be carried out in arrangements of three to five 
each, in almost any situation and against any 
rather flat background, with excellent effect. 

Returning once more to a plant whose good 
qualities cannot be too often extolled, what other 
tall plant for our gardens has half the grace of 
habit of Artemisia ladiflora? Four of these are 
blooming now in our beds, transplanted to their 
present spots a year and a half ago. Two are at 
the east end of the garden, shaded from early sun 
by the bulk of the house. The others are at the 
western end, in full sun. The shaded ones are 
perhaps three feet tall, the others twice as high, 
all in full bloom. I had not counted on this great 
height for these last under any conditions. They 
are out of place where they stand towering too 
abruptly above phloxes; but the charm with which 
these great plants raise themselves into the air 
above their stockier neighbors is a thing to notice 
and record. The flower sprays are as delicate 
against a background of smooth privet and dark 

116 



LATER FLOWERS 

lilac leaves as the tracery of frost upon the win- 
dow-pane in January. The color of the flowers, 
a greenish white, is lovely in itself. And for cut- 
ting, an association much to my liking is that of 
this artemisia with Gladiolus primulinus hybrids, 
or with one of these, new here this season, well 
named Tawny. 

A lovely sequence of taller and lower plants is 
physostegia, phlox Mme. P. Dutrie, phlox Eliza- 
beth Campbell, with flesh-pink balsams below and 
a sky-blue lobelia from Sutton's seed to finish the 
group. Somewhere to the left of these, Lycoris 
squamigera, which blooms, it is true, when the 
phloxes are a bit past their best, gives lovely 
neighboring color, with a great contrast in form 
of flower. The second bloom of my phloxes has 
been this year phenomenal — Antonin Mercie has 
such enormous florets and so many; Elizabeth 
Campbell has done as well; Tapis Blanc is again 
a mound of purest white. A September group is 
of pale-yellow calendulas' strata of bloom, with a 
dwarf flame-colored zinnia gaily holding forth be- 
fore it, white phlox Mrs. Jenkins above, and 
nestling at the roots of the phlox a low second 
bloom of the fine lavender Campanula latifolia. 
Speaking of zinnias it may be noticed that Squa- 

117 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

drilli of Naples lists as many as sixty-one zinnias 
in this year's catalogue, this, of course, including 
not only varieties but colors. In connection with 
a certain double variety, the English language in 
this list is thus dealt with: "Perfect in respect of 
doubleness and colors; possesses not any more the 
stiffness blamed of the single-flowering varieties." 
The time draws near when we must move to 
cover our treasures of geraniums. This is a 
flower, a plant, to which I am devotedly attached. 
Ours are now great plants with two to three foot 
stems. Four are sufficient to furnish one of the 
large Galloway terra-cotta pots familiar to most 
people to-day; the plants are six years old. The 
bold, angular outlines of their stems bear an 
amusing resemblance to an apple-tree; it may be 
partly that which gives me the pleasure I have in 
seeing them all summer on the wall of an open 
terrace which faces the orcliard. There is the 
suggestion of correspondence or of repetition of 
line which gives such satisfaction to the eye. 
The method by which we keep the large geraniums 
from year to year may be worth remembering, for 
spreading geraniums such as these are to be had 
from no florist or plantsman. These are Mrs. 
E. G. Hill, the fine salmon-pink single. In late 

118 



LATER FLOWERS 

October we lift them from the large jars and pots 
separately; then into the west end of the dining- 
room a low window of seven lights they come, 
where they stand on shallow zinc trays with tiny 
drain-pipes at either end. Every visible leaf is 
stripped from each plant, and for the summer's 
beauty we live with these skeletons for six or seven 
weeks in their stark condition. The worst is that 
we breakfast, lunch, and dine beside them thus ! 
Never were green leaves more of a solace than 
those in this window when December brings them. 
From that time on all is well, for the soft green 
foliage is agreeable all the winter through. Why 
do we not keep them in a cellar.^ Why do we 
not send them to a florist.^ For the very good 
reason that because they are precious one cannot 
take a risk. No bud but is pinched out as spring 
approaches; in May the plants are placed in 
their large pots and set out-of-doors on the wall; 
and by the middle of June they are like the gera- 
niums of which one reads as in California, on 
the Riviera, or in Portugal, wonderfully gay with 
flowers at every point. In warmer climates the 
geranium is often trained to grow upright. I can- 
not but suggest allowing it from year to year its 
own full, rugged form. I believe we lose the 

119 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

best beauty of this fine thing by buying it as we 
do afresh each spring, a plant from a cutting, low, 
tiresome, fit only for the process of bedding-out. 
The broadly branching habit of the geranium 
when left to itself makes a little careful staking 
necessary in the windy positions in which we keep 
ours. But this can be done without stiffness or 
apparent use of the wood. 

It is in early September, 1919, and in a dry sea- 
son, that the garden looks actually frayed. Seed- 
pods on all sides, the tall phloxes have a specially 
unravelled look, but cosmos, pale calendulas, and 
other annuals need daily experiences with the 
shears if even a semblance of freshness is to be 
preserved. A few fine things are still to bloom. 
Salvia azurea is opening its perfect blue flowers. 
Here these stand above the late white phlox, Mrs. 
Jenkins, with nice effect. Aconites are in bud. 
The pure white althea Wm. R. Smith has opened 
its first bloom, and in the trial garden to-day I 
found leaning against Campanula lemoinei, var. 
Campanile, my own brilliant namesake in gladioli, 
the most interesting companions for each other. 

September 26, 1920, and yet no frost; this 
year the garden is magnificent in color. The tall 
sprays of Wm. E. Smith hold out their moonlike 

120 



LATER FLOWERS 

blooms of white and those fat podlike buds. Very 
few flowers have a whiteness such as this. The 
texture of the flower is richer, too, than that of 
the whitest of white peonies. The loveliness of 
the dwarf dahlia (yellow) fronting violet petunias 
is quite indescribable too. • 

There is something soothing in the idea of 
flowering plants at rest. To-day I had a certain 
pleasure in watching the long, slender shadows of 
the flung-out canes of ramblers wreathing the dull 
wooden gates of the garden. Those vines still 
have a function to perform toward beauty, thought 
I. Still they lend interest and charm, though 
small green haws replace the rosy flowers of June. 
A light shower has fallen to-day, and the clean 
scent of phloxes, the delicate fragrance of petunias 
and of sweet alyssum rise upon the still autumnal 
air. The long shadows of half past four o'clock 
create delightful garden studies. Then is felt that 
dreaming stillness of a garden, which affects one 
as a thing ineffable. 

October the 20th, and no frost still; and yet my 
garden blooms and yields to shears and basket. 
True, there are many browned or browning plants 
— dried poppies, loosestrifes, statices; but dwarf 
rambler roses are as fresh as in June; zinnias keep 

121: 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

steadily on and fill the garden with bright gleams; 
calendula, I can see from the little platform to- 
day, has many level strata of gold ; violet petunias 
continue to throw forth long, arching branches 
of buds and flowers; ageratum and all the gray- 
leaved things give of their quiet beauty to the 
garden still; and late-sown candytufts, both mauve 
and white, are excellent in the beds. Grape 
leaves on the trellises are yellowing to their fall, 
elms are nearly bare; but lilacs are still leafy, all 
but some transplanted ones. These, whose leaves 
were stripped before transplanting and which 
were well watered afterward, are, to my con- 
sternation, not only making leaf and flower, but 
unfolding them. What shall be their end ? 

A season unheard of, this of 1920 — a season 
of summerlike weather almost to November. The 
smell of mignonette is in the air, the smell of 
apples as men pick all day the glorious fruit which 
is our apple harvest this year from the two acres 
around the house. And, as I sit in my garden, 
thinking, reading, writing, but, more than all, 
gazing, I feel that melancholy so perfectly tuned 
to words in stanzas at the head of this bit of writ- 
ing. For weeks past we have thought each lovely 
day would be the last of its kind; now we know 

122 



LATER FLOWERS 

that this or this must be; yet, like Lear to the 
beloved daughter, we cry, *'Stay a little." In 
associations of flowers with dear and pleasant 
people, in the memories that fall like lights or 
shadows across the garden's spaces, memories of 
those who were within it and are not, lies the 
garden's sweetest quality. It is a touching thing 
planned by the people of a village in Surrey, Eng- 
land, that Garden of Remembrance, as a war 
memorial to be made in the churchyard. "There 
is to be a yew hedge enclosing a plot of ground 
bordered with rosemary. Within there will be a 
memorial stone set in a rock garden in which 
brightly colored flowers will be kept." 

A little wind rises; the rustle of drifting leaves 
is heard in the garden ; the shadows lengthen over 
grass as green as April's. I look at these treasures 
of color and scent, at the green leaves, the charm- 
ing mounds of plant and shrub, and feel that 
poignancy of regret, the attribute of the passing 
of all that is fair. 



123 



VIII 
OTHER FLOWERS 



The harvest is half over already all around us; and so 
pure that not a poppy or cornflower is to be seen. ... If 
Ceres, who is at least as old as many of oiu* fashionable 
ladies, loves tricking herself out in flowers as they do, she 
must be mortified; and with more reason, for she looks 
well always with topknots of ultramarine and vermilion, 
which modern goddesses do not for half so long as they 
think they do. 

— ^Horace Walpole to the Earl of Strafford, Straw- 
berry Hill, August 1, 1783. 



VIII 

OTHER FLOWERS 

^ARTS of this country are now, in August, like 
Holland in May, the time of tulips. Gay 
patchworks of color from the gladiolus fields are a 
not uncommon sight, and many hybrids are com- 
ing from interested amateurs, as well as from com- 
mercial growers. I sometimes think, in looking at 
our industrial cities and their people, of that old 
figure of the warp and woof of life; and if these 
people, many of them so weary, so cheap-looking, 
make up the warp of town life of our country, it 
is the sculptors, the poets, architects, and design- 
ers who brighten the fabric with threads of silver 
and of gold; it is the painters, the musicians, the 
planners of gardens, the growers and hybridizers 
of flowers who draw through that warp their 
threads of form and color. As I returned from 
the exhibition last summer of the American Gladio- 
lus Society, I thought of what those growers and 
hybridizers are doing for the joy of their country. 
The lovely wares they deal in — 

"I often wonder what the Vintners buy, 

One half so precious as the stuff they sell" 
127 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

— the experiments with which they are constantly 
busy — are there any others besides painters, com- 
posers, poets, sculptors, who can give to Americans 
what these are giving ? We need flowers. Every 
man, woman, and child of us is hungry for flowers. 
No man can grow or even sell flowers successfully 
unless he values them at more than money. But 
it is the hybridizer, the man or woman of gentle- 
ness and patience, of intelligence, perception, and 
deep love of the art that brings into this tapestry 
of life a lovely curious pattern through their own 
threads of color, a freshness of design only to be 
wrought by the creative mind. 

As each midsummer comes and opportunity 
presents itself for sights of fields or shows or single 
specimens of the gladiolus, I wonder how interest 
can wander to any other flower than this. There 
is a magic in a subject which has such variants; 
there is fresh pleasure in each change of form, of 
color, of marking; and in these last years, as all 
the world of horticulture knows, the beauty of the 
gladiolus has increased tenfold through its hybrid- 
izers. I have elsewhere written of my penchant 
for the smoky or dusky hues in this flower, in 
Prince of India, for example; but not long since a 
great basket of gladiolus spikes was sent me for 

128 



OTHER FLOWERS 

inspection, and of these I will now discourse for a 
little. A group of these gladioli in dusky tones 
reminds me, as I say, of Prince of India in color 
and texture; like old Genoese velvets in tones of 
faded rose, they are almost a mulberry, and have 
a bloom like the plum's. Among the most beau- 
tiful of these, sent me by Mr. Wing, of Mechanics- 
burg, Ohio, are the following, all Lemoine's: 
Nuee d'Orage, whose inner color is, according to 
the French chart. No. 105; Corinthian red, in 
Ridgway; outer color of edges — French chart, 
189-4; Ridgway, bishop's violet. This flower is 
finely named. Bleriot has somewhat the same 
coloring, but there is some sulphur-yellow in the 
lower petals. This gladiolus is a beauty, and has 
an uncommonly large flower. Colosse, as its 
name would imply, is the largest of this dusky 
rose group. Here we find long petals in a widely 
opened flower, very handsome and distinct. 
Closely related to this in color is Admiral Cervera, 
very dull in tone, ashes of roses really, as in a fab- 
ric, with one cream-white lower petal tipped with 
dull rose. Desdemona, Carmelite, show veinings 
of soft violet on the dull rose of their petals; 
Marocain, heavily suffused with violet on deep 
rose, and Deuil de St. Pierre, a beautiful faded- 

129 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

rose flower, smoked as one might say with dull 
lavender, complete a group of flowers, the work of 
the great artist of Lorraine. Diane is a delicious 
flower, white, very elegant of form, with a sulphur- 
yellow throat; Marquis de Canif has the markings 
of a white carnation, with carmine flakes at the 
edge of the fine white petals, and a suffusion of 
sulphur-yellow in the throat. This flower is of 
remarkable beauty, and one of its attractions lies 
in its broadly frilled edges. Platon is one of the 
bright, rosy mauves, an immense and lovely 
flower, pale sulphur-yellow again in the throat 
here. In Charles Berthier is a lighter tone of the 
same hue, a pure magenta. Here we find a frilled 
and flaked edge, the flakes of the same color, but 
darker. Great elegance of form is a characteristic 
of all these flowers. They sit their stems as 
lightly as a bird the bough. 

Two very pale, cool pinks, superbly marked, are 
Lutetia and LTnnocence. Why the last should be 
so named is a mystery, except for the deep blush 
accompanying the quality in old romances. The 
flower is of a cool blush-pink with dazzling flakes 
of Tyrian rose, French chart 155, at the edge of 
all flowers. This is a much-marked gladiolus, and 
extremely striking. Lutetia has an immense indi- 

X3Q 



OTHER FLOWERS 

vidual flower, much paler than L'Innocence, with 
an exceedingly delicate suffusion of sulphur-yellow 
in the interior of each bloom. 

Antoinette is almost like a lovely ice upon one's 
plate; it really looks as though it might have the 
flavor of a peach. Creamy white within, its petals 
turn at the ends to salmon carmine, French chart 
125-1; a most delicious gladiolus this is. To 
neighbor Antoinette in the garden, for a total con- 
trast, here is Beaute de Juillet, a small flower of 
wonderful proportions, whose colors are inde- 
scribably lovely. In the French chart the princi- 
pal hue is 125-1, with stripes and flakes of a dark 
color, which looks almost violet against its vivid 
background; the whole, one thinks, must be made 
of velvet — it cannot be a living flower. Others 
are General Kuropatkin, a very fine dark-red 
flower, French chart 161, all tones; very fine in 
combination or for contrast with this flower is 
Sans Pareil, a wondrous flower of flame-pink, or 
rich light-coral pink, French chart 125, all tones. 
This has a cream-white throat and white anthers 
with pink stigma. Belle Alliance is rarely beau- 
tiful — its flowers are not large; the upper petals 
are pinkish white, suffused toward the tips with 
light carmine overlaid with pale violet; the three 

131 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

lower petals are distinguished by unusual color in 
very distinct markings. The tips of these petals 
are of violet petunia, No. 2 in the French chart. 
Colibri is a flower of many lovely tones of mauve 
and violet; on the three inner petals are central 
markings of yellowish cream-color. This gladio- 
lus is not large, but unique in color. The darkest 
part of the petals — that is, toward the edge — is 
of the hue named in the French chart as violet 
pourpre No. 1, lighter toward the centre. The 
whole flower, however, is so veined and touched 
with mauve and violet as to be diflScult to charac- 
terize or describe. Baronne dTvoly is a lovely 
white, touched with sulphur with as many as nine 
flowers open along a twisting stalk. This gladio- 
lus is very charming, both in form and substance. 
A planting of the dusky rose gladioli named a few 
paragraphs back would be well accompanied in 
the border by these others in the order now given : 
Emile Antoine, Souboutai, Triton, Aristophane. 
This brings us, by way of those last named, 
through a series of magnificent and ever-brighten- 
ing rose-colors to all the tones called by Ridg- 
way, bright rosy scarlet, French chart 124. What 
a surprise awaits the gardener who will thus 
scheme for the pleasure of the eye ! Harking 

132 



OTHER FLOWERS 

back to Antoinette, I find a note recording her 
excellent appearance in combination with phlox 
Elizabeth Campbell; and ageratum is also charm- 
ing with this gladiolus. With Assuerus, too, one 
of the loveliest of all these French varieties, 
ageratum is particularly good; a planting of phlox 
Braga, with ageratum of a tall kind before it 
and gladiolus Assuerus intermingled with both 
flowers or grouped to right or to left, is an ar- 
rangement I am not at all afraid to suggest. And 
another beauty in these gladioli is Roi Alexandre, 
very interesting with spiral mignonette. 

Another group sent from Ohio by Mrs. Austin, 
of Wayland, gave me great pleasure, too. Evelyn 
Kirtland, well known, I believe, is a flower of great 
beauty — French chart, all tones of 126, but 
mainly the first one on that page. Herada is of 
the hue set down in the same chart as violet eve- 
que, but brighter — No. 189. With Evelyn Kirt- 
land, the comparatively new sweet pea Old Rose 
is delightful, out of doors or in; and with Herada, 
violet petunias, and the mauve physostegia, one 
might form a picture truly entrancing. Three 
gladioli together too, unusually good with each 
other from the point of view of color, are Evelyn 
Kirtland, Herada, and Bertrex. 

133 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

At the time these beauties came from Ohio, 
others made their welcome appearance from 
Vaughan's gladiolus jBelds, which are not far from 
us in Michigan. And first let me mention three or 
four seedlings: No. 129 is one of the largest, purest 
white gladioli one could imagine; in fact, the finest 
white I have ever seen; No. 17, a lily like bloom 
of pale blush-pink — Ridgway, hermosa pink; 
French chart, 153-1, or paler. This is a large 
flower, very upright in habit, with markings of 
purple so far down the throat that they are not 
visible. Seedling 64, French chart, 169 all tones, 
Ridgway, Tyrian pink, is exceedingly imposing, 
a clear, rosy magenta flower, very large and fine. 
One central lower petal has a cream-white inner 
blotch; No. 23 is a rose-pink flower of great size 
and startling beauty — a very large flower, white 
ground with splashes of violet rose, in Ridgway; 
French chart, 154-1. Owosso is a deeper yellow 
than Schwaben, with some frillings at its edges — 
a lovely variety, practically a clear tone with no 
markings. When I saw gladiolus Mrs. O. B. 
Campbell for the first time I thought it precisely 
like a magnificent zonal pelargonium. This flower 
is not large, but of velvety texture, bright rosy 
scarlet, I should call it; Ridgway has it scarlet-red 

134 



OTHER FLOWERS 

and rose doree, and the French chart 124-4. The 
round markings on the lower petals of these gor- 
geous flowers are of a purple almost black. Here 
is a marvel for our gardens, so vivid that all it 
needs is to be allowed to bloom below Artemisia 
ladiflora, or among early cream-white chrysanthe- 
mums, to create a true horticultural sensation. 

Other varieties that were particularly fine, these 
all named, were Myrtle, a flower of a lovely color, 
all the tones of 153 in the French chart, and in 
Ridgway, hermosa and La France pink; Chicago 
Salmon, superb in form and color, Ridgway, be- 
gonia rose, and French chart 124, all tones, also 
125; Schwaben, very well known and deservedly 
so, a fine pale-yellow gladiolus, a large, well-opened 
flower, violet blotches in the throat, though very 
far back. This gladiolus is very fine grown or 
cut in combination with mauves, or with primu- 
linus hybrids. Attraction is of the color called by 
Ridgway spectrum red and begonia rose; in the 
French chart 121, all tones. Attraction has a 
wonderful open throat of waxy white. It pos- 
sesses very fine, even dazzling flowers, growing far 
apart on the stalk, the latter very strong and tall. 
Out of three fine primulinus hybrids in the rich 
flame, copper, and yellow of that tribe, I should 

135 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

say that seedling 502 is the finest. The others are 
AHce Tiplady and Regulus. No. 502 has a depth 
of color which reminds one of certain Brazilian 
butterflies. Apricot-yellow, rose, scarlet, all these 
shades are caught in this flower and blended in 
one fiery glow. To conclude this group, Vaughan's 
seedling No. 6 is a flower of tremendous interest 
to me; Ridgway calls this flower peach -red; the 
French chart shows it in plate 88, all tones; the 
blotch on its throat is Ridgway, oxblood red, 
French chart 95-4. This is, I believe, the most 
striking gladiolus I have ever seen, six flowers open 
at one time. Its color is of Oriental magnificence, 
its rich hues and velvet texture remarkable. Also 
the flower is well opened, my only criticism being 
that the flowers may be set too close to each other 
along the stem. The name of this glory in gladioli 
is Martha Washington. It reminds one of Le- 
moine's Beaute de Juillet, but this is more scarlet 
and brown, while that is vivid rose-pink, with vel- 
vety carmine blotches. 

From yet another source, from fields at Mount 
Clemens, Michigan, arrived a generous basket of 
cut blooms of gladioli. Among these I found a 
group of most excellent whites — Wisconsin, L'lm- 
maculee, Utah, and Maine, a wonderful purity in 

136 



OTHER FLOWERS 

this last. Roem Von Kemmerland was a great 
beauty, French chart 157, all shades. This gladio- 
lus reminded me of an old favorite, Rosella. Its 
color was delicious, its flower very large and effec- 
tive. La Grandesse was one of the loveliest of 
all, a clear, warm pink. The flowers were large 
and boldly frilled. This is a splendid flower. Its 
color in the French chart is mauve rose, 153, the 
palest tones. A trio of gladioli which, according 
to my notes made on seeing them for the first time, 
would take any prize anywhere, used together, 
either cut or planted, is made up of Chris, Loveli- 
ness, and Liss. Liss, French chart 142, is of a 
fine, lively pink, something like a darker edition of 
Tracy's Dawn, which I have always liked. Love- 
liness has for its color a very pale pink, palest buff 
within its flowers; it is a large, well-opened flower 
of unusual charm. Chris is a rich flower of vel- 
vety texture, not large but effective. Goliath is a 
glorious dark flower, French chart 170-4, very 
wide-open and deep in color. Goliath, Radium, 
and Illinois look well with each other. Of Ra- 
dium I must say one word. It is a lovely flower. 
When freshly opened it is white, suffused with 
pale pink, pale yellow in the throat, with a car- 
mine blotch below. As it ages the upper petals 

137 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

and outside turn to a delicious pink, exactly re- 
produced by the French chart in 120-1. Illumina- 
tor, seen at the Detroit Gladiolus Show, is a flower 
of great splendor — splendor of color first, a glow- 
ing crimson scarlet, and, as I remember it, it is, 
when held against the light, like some ruby-tinted 
wine. 

Many others there were in this wondrous basket 
of flowers which should receive mention here, but 
time and space forbid. I should like, however, to 
name a group of fine scarlets, so good that one 
could hardly single one out from the others: Clear 
Eye, Electra, Mrs. Vos, Pride of Hillegom, General 
Joffre, Johannesfeuer, Mrs. Neldhuys, Fair King, 
and Evening Red. A glowing flower was Majestic, 
rouge grenadine in the French chart. Wilbrink is 
very unusual and fine in its effect; a good lavender 
was Mr. Mark; other lavenders are Catherine, 
Ewbank, and the familiar Blue Jay. I hear, also, 
that Louise is a fine acquisition to those of this 
color. 

I have grown for several years now some of the 
beauties from Decorah, Iowa, the work in hy- 
bridizing of two devoted men who started as 
amateurs. Although I occasionally share the fate 
of most gardeners in losing track of sources as of 

138 



OTHER FLOWERS 

labels, I think it was from Decorah that there 
came a gladiolus of surpassing beauty, Salvator 
Rosa. In color here were three distinct tones of 
pink, given in Ridgway as begonia-rose, eosine- 
rose, and hermosa-pink; in the French chart gen- 
eral tone 124-1, also 123-1, with deeper tones on 
lower petals, 120-3, 4, and 119-3, 4. The three 
colors as mentioned by Ridgway were shown in 
this flower as straight above each other, with a 
throat of carmine. Certainly, this marvellous old- 
rose gladiolus (and possibly its name is Old Rose — 
I am not certain of anything except the fact of its 
superb beauty) is one of the finest blooms I have 
ever seen. Its color is remarkably rich and un- 
usual, and it carries its very large flowers on a 
stalk of singular uprightness and substance. Mon- 
tezuma, French chart 156-4, for its general tone 
cannot be denied mention. Its color in Ridg- 
way is pomegranate purple, a color-name pretty 
enough to commend it anywhere; it is a superb 
flower, practically self-colored, very tall, and with 
large blooms. I noticed that the new sweet 
pea, Hawlmark Pink, was charming with this 
gladiolus. 

We speak of the clematis; and immediately 
we think of climbing things — of C. paniculata, 

139 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

C. montana, perhaps of C, tangutica the new beauty 
from China with its small, clear yellow flowers; 
or we recall some of the large-flowered clematises 
that we know, such as the purple C. Jachmanni, 
the charming pinkish-lavender C. Jackmanni Mme. 
Edouard Andre, the two shown garlanding the 
arch in the illustration facing page 90. But how 
seldom do we think of the Davidiana type — the 
bush or low-growing shrubby clematises which 
may have become fairly numerous and so beauti- 
ful in the hands of M. Lemoine. One I must 
describe here, given me some years ago by Mr. 
W. C. Egan, to whom I owe so many fine things 
for the garden. This is Clematis Lemoinei cam- 
panile. The beauty of this flower is well-nigh 
indescribable. Three years of it in this garden 
have now brought it to full beauty, and a cluster 
of it is before me now in a crystal vase with, most 
appropriately, a few sprays of phlox W. C. Egan. 
Impossible it is to conceive of a lovelier effect 
in flower decoration than this. The clematis so 
aptly, beautifully named is some three feet high, 
the flowers produced typically from the axils of 
the leaves except for a long, loose terminal raceme 
which actually towers above the topmost leaves. 
These flowers, like the florets of a hyacinth, are 

140 



OTHER FLOWERS 

of the tones in Ridgway's plate No. XXIV from 
pallid grayish violet-blue to deep chicory-blue with 
tips of deep dull bluish violet. The pointed buds 
are of a medium tone of lavender-blue and the 
length of one branch of flowers is at least a foot. 
Anything more delicately lovely than this new 
herbaceous plant cannot be imagined. Its fra- 
grance too commends it, again like a hyacinth in 
this. For a space where white or pale color may 
be desired for May and late August, may I sug- 
gest an interplanting of this beauty from Nancy 
with that delicious shrub. Viburnum carlesii, both 
hardy with me through the severest test of all 
cold weather, the winter of 1917-18? Clematis 
Campanile needs careful staking; its flower clus- 
ters are heavy and quickly bear down the delicate 
branches to the ground. Mr. Arnold Forster, 
writing on these less familiar clematises in "The 
Garden," mentions clematis Cypris as a remark- 
ably fine member of the group. "It is surprising 
how seldom one sees Lemoine's beautiful hybrids 
of C. Davidiana. Some of them are most valuable 
in the border or in association with shrubs, having 
at once rare and subtle color and delightful scent. 
The newest sorts, Campanile and Giseau Bleu, 
which are derived from C. starts, do not seem to 

141 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

me to be as good as some of the older sorts, such 
as Cypris; during the three or four seasons in 
which I have grown them they have never made 
anything hke such a fine effect as one had expected 
from an illustration in Lemoine's catalogue. Per- 
haps the plants want a rather different treatment 
from what I have given them; they are evidently 
semi-scandent in habit. Cyprisj on the other 
hand, is sufficiently erect to need little or no 
staking. The flowers are much more beautiful 
in shape and have a smell something like that of 
cowslips. The silvered blue of the flower clusters 
is too subtle a color for association with violent 
yellow, such as that of the helianthuses, but with 
the pale, clean yellow of a good hybrid of Gladi- 
olus primulinus it is veiy happy." 

Let us leave this fascinating subject after men- 
tion of a new clematis recommended by Mr. 
Egan, but which I do not know. It is clematis 
Ina Dwyer, originating in the gardens of and for 
sale by E. F. Dwyer & Sons, of Lynn, Mass- 
achusetts. A two-inch flower, of white "shaded 
to blue on the edges and tips of petals" (but 
more probably a lavender or purple than a blue 
— I have learned to be wary where mention of 
blue is concerned), with an immense number of 

142 




A GARLAND OF CLEMATIS 



OTHER FLOWERS 

flowers to each stem, a strong grower, and bloom- 
ing in August, this clematis should be given a 
trial. All of these clematises should be tried in our 
gardens. New varieties, old varieties, all will lend 
a beauty either delicate or bold, as we ourselves 
intend and arrange, to other plant-groupings. 
Mr. Rothe says that all the herbaceous clematises 
may be raised from spring-sown seed, or, as I 
know from my experience, by division in spring 
and autumn. Sun they must have, and, to quote 
Mr. Rothe, "all thrive best in rather light high 
ground." Clematis on a wall beyond lupines, 
clematis among gladioli — there are countless 
suggestions for the use of this beautiful subject. 
Here one can only touch upon it; but its perfect 
beauty is such that one turns easily to the thought 
of general finish and perfection in a garden, and 
that permits the introducing here of what should 
sum up any discussion of fine individual plant- 
subjects, their effective use in a good garden. 

I write now of the immediate surroundings and 
of the small garden of a villinp that I have lately 
seen for the first time. To my surprise, it was 
from a rocky point that the house lifted itself 
against the sky. I had not heard that it stood 
upon a cliff. Up a flight of stone steps I went; 

143 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

then, turning to the right sharply, my eye was held 
by a delicious wrought-iron gate, lightness itself, 
with birds, flowers, and an initial letter gracefully 
outlined; along a terrace walk then, passing on 
the left another stone stairway to a third level. 
The notable thing about these steps was the use 
in pots, set on every step, of Phlox Drummondi 
Chamois Rose, slender plants in full bloom, lightly 
staked to keep them upright. A magical effect 
of decorative color this was, a thing to commend 
where surroundings make it suitable. 

A little revelation of beauty lay in wait for me 
at the end of a stroll among barberry bushes on a 
rocky knoll not far from the house; we came upon 
a narrow shady walk, locusts closely planted on 
either side. At the farther end of this, without 
other warning than the formal lines of small trees 
just mentioned, one of the loveliest imaginable 
of little walled gardens burst upon my delighted 
eye. Here was the element of surprise beloved 
of the good landscape architect, that element 
which plays alike upon the mind of the statesman 
and the school-girl, and gives pleasure to both. 
A garden of low plants, a garden of perfect edges 
and greensward — to sum up, the garden of an 
artist. The centre of this garden is a round of 

144 



OTHER FLOWERS 

smooth turf. This is flanked by two narrow semi- 
circular beds, in which, on August 7, dehcate 
serried masses (if one may combine those two 
words) of annual larkspur were in bloom. Only 
violet and lavender were used. Four other beds 
at corners held perfect rose-plants, pink Druschki, 
I think. These were not closely planted; one 
could see the drawing of the rose-bush and its 
lovely bloom against the well-tilled soil. And 
at one corner of each rose-bed was the original 
and fascinating addition, used as accents, of a 
fine rounded specimen of lemon verbena. Of 
course, the first idea here must have been the con- 
venience of its position, but it looked well too, 
and I said to myself, and have so often thought 
since — if all gardeners would only do more as 
they want to do ! The owners of this garden wish 
to gather lemon verbena as they pluck their roses 
— what more natural than to grow one beside 
the other .^ But the actual inability to do any- 
thing wrong in gardening via architecture, is given 
to but few. The possessors of this garden are 
blessed above women in having a sixth sense of 
absolute fitness, and instinctively they used the 
plant they wanted in such a fashion as to make 
its presence right. 

145 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

In my interest in this detail, however, so simple, 
venturesome, and successful, I have forgotten to 
complete the description of the garden itself. 
Remember that the centre of this garden has 
violet, lavender, and white as its only colors: 
that fine dark-leaved roses spread away from 
those. Now around all the garden are tall rows 
of Aconitum Wilsonii, in full stately bloom of 
purple, of that blue-purple found in old enamels. 
What went before all these violets and lavenders 
in this garden I do not know. I am ignorant as 
to what is to come after. But the picture of 
quiet beauty left with me on that August day 
will remain; a sober loveliness, a quiet use of 
some of the best flowers, a grave harmony of 
color only to be achieved by those who have 
loved and studied and sought beauty always. 



146 



IX 

BRIGHT-BERRIED GROWTH FOR 
THE WINTER GARDEN 



In truth our climate is so bad that instead of filling our 
gardens with buildings, we ought rather to fill our build- 
ings with gardens as the only way of enjoying the latter. 
— ^Horace Walpole to the Reverend Wm. Mason, 
Strawberry Hill, May 9, 1772. 



IX 

BRIGHT-BERRIED GROWTH FOR 
THE WINTER GARDEN 

/'"XN an October day, black wind-clouds in the 
^^-^ distance, a ray of sunlight suddenly breaks 
upon a mass of almost leafless sweetbrier, sweet 
honeysuckle entwined among its thorns. The 
boughs of the brier are hung with scarlet haws 
which glow against the dark-gray background of 
the sky and cheer the gardener with the thought 
that though green may have departed other color 
remains. The barberries of various varieties pro- 
duce, with their single or clustering berries of 
scarlet, a like effect; and a tiny shrub, new this 
year to me and in its infancy, being now but ten 
inches high, is beautiful beyond description in its 
berried state. This is Cotoneaster buUata, far less 
formidable and more charming than its name 
would imply. 

And now the glorious bronze foliage of Rosa 
lucida is a treasure. Its use with dull-pink hardy 
chrysanthemums, or, if frost shall have spared 
them, with the scarlet dahlia, is a thing to re- 

149 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

member, to count upon as the season of fewer 
flowers advances and autumn comes on. Who 
of us that gardens does not think regretfully of 
the fact that while we live in a world of scarlet 
and gold the glory around us must soon give way 
to the depredations of "leaf -picking winds" and 
autumn rains and that shortly little but bare 
boughs shall be our portion? It is then that 
we look about for some consoling hint of color in 
our borders. It is then that we say sadly to our- 
selves: "Why have I not set a bit of red-fruiting 
shrubbery there or here ! " Long after Christmas 
in our severest northern climate we may enjoy 
the garden or the shrubberies from the stand- 
point of color, but not without a forehanded 
knowledge of what to plant to secure winter 
effect as well as how to distribute our subjects 
when setting them in place. 

The wind-swept desolate look in winter of many 
of the smaller younger cities and towns of our 
country makes entirely suitable a short discussion 
of our needs in this direction. In spring and sum- 
mer the enthusiast in out-of-door work is in a 
trance of pleasure in the beauty all about him; 
in autumn the rich possessions which are his on 
every side in hues of scarlet, green, and purple 

150 



BRIGHT-BERRIED GROWTH 

quite occupy Ms eye and mind. It occurs to 
none of us to do more than enjoy the seasons as 
they come. All at once — November, the leafless 
tree, a few snowflakes in the air ! We rouse our- 
selves to actualities. We look out of window at 
our lot, small or large as it may be, we gaze down 
the road, street, or avenue, and in a flash we 
know that like Adam and Eve in Eden we are 
naked. Our neighbors' houses, garages, stables, 
become our intimate and outstanding objects of 
vision. There is room, much room, in our coun- 
try for a better understanding of the matter of 
structural green; and by structural green I mean 
the enclosings, the walls of foliage, the screens 
of leafy things which we must erect before any- 
thing really lovely and finished can take place 
within. I sometimes think that most of us be- 
gin at the wrong end of gardening. We start 
with flowers. Like children the brightness is 
our desire. But as time passes, we shall surely 
come to realize that backgrounds, enclosings, in 
short, that plans, are the starting-points of all 
good gardens. 

After some sort of green or evergreen back- 
ground shall have been attained comes naturally 
the decorative idea, the planting against ever- 

151 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

greens, against a summery expanse of rich green 
for contrast of form and color. For summer from 
what myriads of subjects we may choose ! But 
for winter? Another story? Yes and no; for, 
while we have many already, the list of shrubs 
and smaller trees, and of creepers too, with ever- 
green or nearly evergreen foliage, of trees and 
shrubs with vari-colored bark, with fruits of bright 
hues, is, thanks to the Arnold Arboretum and to 
Mr. E. H. Wilson, its distinguished collector, 
rapidly increasing. 

The matter of the better-known shrubs with 
decorative fruits it is not necessary here to con- 
sider at any great length. Viburnums, the sym- 
phoricarpos, the older barberries, vulgaris and 
Thunhergiiy are so familiar that attention hardly 
needs to be drawn to them. I may even dare to 
say that the over-use in certain communities of 
these fine things, the stupid copying by one after 
another of the same shrubs arranged in the same 
fashion has become too common. This was all 
very well when shrub-planting first became general 
in America, say twenty years ago; it is well still 
in smaller communities; it is decidedly not well 
in suburbs and in the lesser cities where money is 
not so much of a consideration and where variety 

152 



BRIGHT-BERRIED GROWTH 

is so much to be desired. Is it not a fact that in 
certain suburbs of Chicago, for example, the over- 
use of the barberry is noticeable? The same 
holds true in certain suburbs of Boston. A fine 
thing done to death is a pity — and this condition 
usually obtains because of a lack of observation 
on the part of property-owners. 

To some of my more sedate or settled readers 
it may seem odd that I should so often dwell upon 
the newer varieties of flower and shrub, and par- 
ticularly of shrub. "How," they may cry, "and 
why should people of middle age concern them- 
selves with the planting of that which they can 
scarcely hope to see in its full maturity.'*" And 
this question indeed has been discussed lately in 
the columns of certain journals devoted to gar- 
dening and the larger forms of horticulture. "In 
my own experience," says one writer — "and I 
meet a good many keen gardeners — I find that 
the longer a man has been interested in gardening, 
the more his attention centres around trees and 
shrubs." On speaking of this to one of the best- 
informed horticultural men I have ever met, he 
said that this was undoubtedly the case. For, 
as one grows older and keenness diminishes for 
other forms of active exercise, so does one's inter- 

153 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

est in permanent features of the garden increase. 
To plant is a pleasure of the activity of youth; 
to watch the development is a joy of the inactivity 
of age. Says another: "While money and energy 
will advance most worldly concerns, these are 
minor considerations in the matter of a shrub. 
Money and energy may start a fine piece under 
perfect conditions, but they will not hasten its 
growth. Shrubs, in fact, are simply no good to 
an old man in a hurry. If you are over sixty 
years of age, stick to the herbaceous border, or- 
chids, and fruit; indeed, forty-five is none too 
early to begin growing shrubs. But you will find 
the pursuit worth while, for, though shrubs offer 
no intellectual excitement, they furnish quite an 
intelligent pastime and may serve to gladden the 
leisure of a busy man, or even to keep an idle one 
out of mischief — provided the worthless individ- 
ual can be grafted with proper ardor for frutes- 
cent things." 

A garden, be it of flowers or shrubs, is the prov- 
ince of hope. To the true lover of gardening 
there is no winter of discontent — only a winter 
of three or four short months, full to the brim 
with expectancy, and with thankfulness for time 
to study, to plan, to think on summer. Indeed, 

154 



BRIGHT-BERRIED GROWTH 

as I have always thrust from me the idea of even 
a tiny glass-house as being too much of a tempta- 
tion and distraction in winter, so am I almost 
but not quite inclined not to urge the use of the 
delightful newer shrubs for winter effect upon the 
gardener who seeks the peace which only comes 
after the first frost, the gardener "whose ungar- 
nered sheaves are past the help of burlap." 

A trial garden for shrubs — here is the needed 
thing. "The trial garden," writes Mr. Jacob in 
"The Garden," "deliberately planned, is a rare 
thing to find. Yet if one wishes to insure a 
harmonious blending of the occupants of his beds 
and borders, no suggestion can be more practical. 
There under our own eye we may see samples of 
everything that seeks for admission, and we can 
note its shade or tone of color and its appearance 
were this or that its bedfellow." Nothing could 
now prove more valuable for the American ama- 
teur horticulturist than the establishment, where 
there is inclination plus the necessary space, of 
a trial garden for the little-known shrubs from 
western China now available for American winter 
effect. 

Some years since a highly interesting list of 
shrubs and shrublike trees was published in one 

155 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

of our horticultural periodicals, a list of groups 
according to the color of fruit. The list, which I 
am kindly permitted to quote, runs thus: 

SHRUBS WITH SCARLET FRUITS 

Pyracantha coccinea. 

Berberis Thunbergii, sibirica, and vulgaris. 

Benzoin sestivale. 

Celastrus articulatus, scandens. 

Ilex verticillata, opaca, and laevigata. 

Lonicera bella, var. albida and var. Candida. 

Lonicera Ruprechtiana. 

Rosa rugosa, multiflora and setigera. 

Rhus typhina. 

Symphoricarpos orbiculatus. 

SHRUBS WITH YELLOW FRUITS 

Cydonia japonica and Maulei. 

Hippophse rhamnoides. 

Ilex verticillata, var. fructu-lutea. 

Melia Azedarach. 

Viburnum Opulus xanthocarpum. 

SHRUBS WITH GRAY FRUITS 

Clethra alnifolia. 
Cornus candidissima. 
Eleagnus angustifolia. 
Myrica cerifera. 

SHRUBS WITH WHITE FRUITS 

Symphoricarpos racemosa and occideutalis. 

156 



BRIGHT-BERRIED GROWTH 

SHRUBS WITH ORANGE FRUITS 

Citrus trifoliata. 

Cydonia japonica. 

Crataegus orientalis. 

Ilex aquifolium, var. fructo-aurantiaca. 

Lonicera Morrowi. 

Pyracantha coccinea, var. Lebaudi. 

Rosa pendulina, arkansana, acicularls and blanda. 

Sapindus marginatus. 

BLUE AND BLUISH FRUITS 

Callicarpa purpurea, americana, and japonica. 

Cornus sanguinea. 

Juniperus virginiana. 

Berberis japonica and aquifolium. 

Viburnum nudum and dentatum. 

BLACK FRUITS 

Crataegus Douglasi and nigra. 
Ligustrum vulgare, ibota, and Regelianum. 
Sambucus Canadensis. 
Viburnum rufidulum and lentago. 
Rhamnus cathartica and dahurica. 

CREEPERS WITH WINTER FRUIT 

Cocculus carolinus, bright red berries all winter. 
Celastrus scandens and paniculatus (yellow and red). 
Euonymus radicans (yellow and red). 
Gaultheria procumbens (scarlet). 
Lycium halimifolium and chinense (red). 
Mitchella repens (red). 
Rhus toxicodendron (gray). 

157 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

The profusion of bright color here set forth is 
surely enough to cause even a hurried amateur 
to look closely into it. 

Besides these fruiting things whose color is 
persistent, there are among the viburnums berries 
which change their color, according to a short 
note upon the subject lately read. The follow- 
ing sorts change from green to black only: Vibur- 
num acerifolium^ dentatum, prunifolium, pubescens, 
and lentago. Those changing from green to red, 
then to black or blue-black are cassinoides, Ian- 
tana, lantanoideSy nudum, Sieboldii, and tomento- 
sum. Then there are some that simply turn from 
green to red such as dilatatum, opulus, and Wrigh- 
tii. All that change from red to black are very 
ornamental, because all the berries on a cluster 
do not change at the same time; hence there is a 
pretty combination of the red and black berries 
appearing on the same cluster. Cassinoides is 
notable for this. Viburnum dilatatum, V. Opulus, 
and V. Wrightii hold their fruits all winter. 
Viburnum lentago grows into a very tall shrub. 
Its fruits are oval, bluish black, with a certain 
bloom upon them. They hang upon the trees till 
spring. 

Has ever shrub been found to exceed the bar- 

158 



BRIGHT-BERRIED GROWTH 

berry tribe in the abundance of fruit produced? 
None except perhaps the Loniceras or bush honey- 
suckles; and while their berries are wonderful 
for bright profuseness and those of Lonicera 
Maachii, var. podocarpa, that finest of all bush 
honeysuckles, garnish the branches far into the 
time of cold, surely the barberries and cotoneasters 
are the two which best defy the winter storms. 
As for the new Chinese barberries, they will be, 
I predict, if anything more used than the Japanese. 
""Berheris Wilsonoe^*' writes one who grows and 
knows it, "has been most welcome to the land- 
scape-gardener. It can be used in several posi- 
tions with advantage, and it produces effect the 
first season after planting." 

But besides the snowberries, viburnums, and 
barberries the better-known fruiting shrubs for 
winter beauty are the privets and the roses. 
Throughout December and even later may be 
found the beautiful blue-black clusters of small 
fruits upon Kegel's privet {Ligustrum Regelianum) 
as well as upon the common privet {Ligustrum 
mdgare) . And among the roses may be mentioned 
the large black haws of Rosa spinosissima, the 
vivid scarlet ones of Rosa lucida, and the charm- 
ing clustered berries of Rosa setigera, the Michigan 

159 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Rose, which, with me, gleam against arbor-vitse 
all through the time of snow. These clusters 
hang from drooping stems of lovely purple-brown, 
the fruit is of a very bright orange-scarlet, and 
the whole effect of bough and berry too most 
brilliant and gay. Rosa setigera is never better 
placed than against some dark evergreen such as 
arbor-vitse or red cedar. Rose and cedar, cedar 
and thorn — these are invariably interesting com- 
panionships. 

That remarkable red-berried evonymus, the 
variety called vegetus, is certainly destined to a 
great future in this country. Doctor Wilhelm 
Miller wrote of it with his wonted enthusiasm 
some four years ago as the coming ivy for America, 
the evergreen creeper to use as ivy is used in Eng- 
land. My own specimens of this valuable thing 
are young as yet; but all the beauty ascribed to 
them I already easily imagine. A fine round leaf 
of a lighter green color than that of Evonymus 
radicans, an alertly branching habit which gives 
promise of quick and graceful growth, and a 
scarlet fruit (or probably orange-scarlet, as it is 
said to resemble that of the common bittersweet) 
which in the severest winter will not desert the 
parent stem — what could an enthusiast ask 

160 



BRIGHT-BERRIED GROWTH 

further as a lovely garnishment for his walls or 
piers for winter? Those glorious fruits of the 
black swamp-alder, bright scarlet beads along 
brown stems, which occasionally light up the 
snowy December landscape in Michigan, set one's 
thought at once to a cheerful Christmas tune. 
The fruits of this fine evergreen vine for America 
will, when they are known, do the same for the 
individual householder. "Evergreen it is," says 
Doctor Miller, easy to grow (perfectly hardy in 
the latitude of Boston), wonderful in its winter 
fruit, and "it promises to develop a strong Ameri- 
can character." 

The graceful sprays of the snowberry, however, 
bring to my mind the fact that these same fruits 
used in early September for cutting with lavender 
and rich purple annual asters are surprisingly 
good. In this connection it occurs to me, too, 
that between these snowberry bushes a plenteous 
use of hardy asters in taller and more dwarf varie- 
ties should produce a satisfying late September 
and early October effect. A lovely picture lately 
noticed, of a beautiful white-berried shrub, is of 
Pernettya mucronata. Sad to say this shrub is 
not hardy in the northern part of America — I 
mention it here because its photograph turned 

161 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 




162 



BRIGHT-BERRIED GROWTH 



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163 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

my thoughts at once to the snowberry; yet this 
dwarf evergreen bush, pernettya, with its thick 
clusters of waxen fruits, must be a thousand times 
more beautiful than the symphoricarpos. The 
pernettya is a smaller bush, in fact of dwarf habit. 
Its fruits, in the picture referred to, remind one 
of those marvellous flowers of the lovely gray- 
leaved shrub Zenobia whose clustering bloom 
once seen cannot be forgotten. 

And speaking of the snowberry, it is again most 
perfect seen back of a planting of Berheris Thun- 
bergii, with the glorious Mahonia aquifolium 
showing in its glossy leaves not only tones of green 
but tones of purple-bronze as well. A fine com- 
pany, these shrubs together, and a lovely Decem- 
ber effect with white and scarlet berries and the 
holly-like mahonia foliage. 

Since I write on the general topic of the adorn- 
ment of the home landscape for winter, why may 
I not give a word to a marvel of a shrub whose 
flowers in the latitude of Boston appear in Febru- 
ary — yes, in mid-February ! This is the Jap- 
anese witch-hazel. Fancy a shrub coming into 
bloom in what is often the coldest of our winter 
months, sending forth little yellow flowers along 
the length of its branches, flowers which neither 

164 



BRIGHT-BERRIED GROWTH 

snow nor frost seem to affect. Is not this a thing 
to long for? 

To close this chapter I am fortunate in showing 
here a delightful plan for a hidden and winter 
garden, together with a few sentences and a bit 
of poetry from this garden's owner. These carry 
the idea in the foregoing paragraphs to a high and 
lovely plane. 

"I have planted this garden mostly with light 
blue delphinium and white speciosum lilies — • 
and mean to plant as thickly as possible along 
these colors, possibly later a few yellow speciosimas. 
But at the extreme end, half shadowed by pine- 
trees are my peacocks, in a very large cage. They 
sit in the sun, and one looks down the path of 
stepping-stones, very blue in color, and the gleam- 
ing neck of the peacock seems to catch the light 
from the entire garden and reflect it in the iri- 
descence there. That seems to me the very last 
touch and I enjoy it every time I look. I sup- 
pose, in time, when the garden gets too sombre, 
I shall have to put my white pair there, but we 
shall see. 

"The Master said, * When the year becomes cold, 
then we know how the pine and the cypress are the 
last to close their leaves.' " — Confucian Analects. 

165 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

'Let us shut the Summer in when the year is growing old. 
And build a fortress round her against the Khan of Cold, 
With bastions of cypress, cedar, pine and fir, 
And walls of yew and ivy floors, and keep them green for 
her, 

'With berries of the berberls and beds of bitter-sweet 
To entangle her and hold her and charm her flying feet. 
Let us keep the sun and birds with us that Summer may 

not know 
How the snow-white phantom horsemen ride and drive to 

and fro. 

'Outside, the Khan is there with his cohorts hundreds deep. 
But in this green Elysium the rhododendrons keep 
With the juniper and holly the dreams that haunt them 

yet 
Of the spirit of the Summer they never would forget." 
—Frederick Peterson, "The Winter Garden." 



166 



X 



THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM: A 
NATIONAL TREASURE 



The year commenced indeed with a very significant 
tempest. . • . The greatest ruin is at my nephew Dy- 
sart's at Ham, where five and thirty of the old ehns are 
blown down. I think it no loss, as I hope now one shall 
see the river from the house. He never would cut a 
twig to see the most beautiful scene upon earth. 
— Horace Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossory, 
London, Jan. 3, 1779. 



X 

THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM: A 
NATIONAL TREASURE 

AS the visitor to the Arnold Arboretum stands 
^ entranced in May, before glowing and fin- 
ished pictures of tree and shrub fully developed 
and in full flower; as he sees around him a beauty 
so complete, so ravishing, that it seems to have 
taken a century or so to create it — what is his sur- 
prise to learn that this tree museum dates only 
from 1882, and that only three years later actual 
tree-planting was begun ! 

James Arnold, a New Bedford merchant, at the 
suggestion of his friend George B. Emerson, left 
in 1868 the sum of $100,000 for the promotion of 
agriculture and horticulture. Mr. Emerson and 
his friend Mr. John James Dixwell, both trustees 
of this bequest, themselves growers and lovers of 
trees, decided that no better use could be made of 
this money than to give it to Harvard University, 
on condition that the institution established an 
arboretum. This was in 1872. The university al- 
ready owned a farm in West Roxbury, part of 

169 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

which was deemed a suitable location for the tree 
museum. A poor farm it was, yet on it the univer- 
sity agreed to grow "every tree and shrub able to 
endure the climate of Massachusetts"; and here I 
use Professor Sargent's own words, recently writ- 
ten : "It is safe to say that none of the men directly 
engaged in making this agreement had any idea 
what an arboretum might be, or what it was going 
to cost in time and money to carry out the agree- 
ment to cultivate all the trees and shrubs which 
could be grown in Massachusetts, and certainly 
none of them were more ignorant on this subject 
than the person selected to see that this agreement 
was carried out. He found himself provided with 
a worn-out farm, partly covered with native woods 
nearly ruined by pasturage and neglect, with only 
a small part of the income of the $100,000 available, 
for it had been decided by the university that the 
whole income could not be used until the principal 
had been increased to $150,000 by accumulated 
interest. He was without the support and encour- 
agement of the general public, which knew nothing 
and cared less about an arboretum and what it 
was expected to accomplish." 

"The person selected" of the paragraph above 
was none other than the first director of the Arnold 

170 



THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 

Arboretum, Professor Sargent liiraself. How won- 
derfully fortunate that material collected primarily 
in the interest of botanical knowledge should have 
come at once into the keeping of one a scientist of 
renown and an artist as well ! Yet at every turn 
in the arboretum is in evidence not only Professor 
Charles Sprague Sargent's great scientific and ad- 
ministrative powers, but his artist's gift, his vision. 
To return: Frederick Law Olmsted made at this 
time a far-reaching suggestion, to the effect that 
the arboretum become a part of the Boston park 
system. After many vicissitudes this was accom- 
plished; plans for drives and walks were made by 
Mr. Olmsted, and in 1885 was commenced the 
actual planting of trees. Professor Sargent's re- 
port in 1879 of the forest wealth and forest trees 
of the United States, made by invitation of the 
government, his travels and the collections made 
through him during that period were of inestimable 
value to the development of the arboretum, and 
resulted in the unsurpassed collection of North 
American woods in the American Museum of 
Natural History in New York, as well as the 
greatest of all works on trees, Sargent's "The Silva 
of North America." 

North America first supplied the tree and shrub 

171 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

subjects for the arboretum, but in 1878 the first 
tree-seeds from eastern Asia were received. These 
were from Sapporo, in northern Japan. The Jap- 
anese tree-Hlac, the two chmbing hydrangeas, and 
a new magnoKa were among the plants thus intro- 
duced. Four years later from Peking came the 
first shrub and tree seeds from China, among them 
the two beautiful lilacs, Syringa villosa and Syringa 
pubescensy which if the reader does not know it is 
his own great loss. The success of these Chinese 
seeds in the arboretum gave Professor Sargent the 
idea of botanical exploration by the arboretum in 
China; Mr. E. H. Wilson was sent thither, with 
the result that the arboretum stands alone to-day 
as the source of information in Western lands of 
the woody vegetation of eastern Asia. Korea and 
northern China are also represented through the 
arboretum's travellers. 

Of the laboratories and nurseries of the arbo- 
retum, it can be truly said that their line is gone 
out over all the earth. Research results and plants 
have been sent to all other countries, and that 
great-hearted devotee of plants who long presided 
over the nurseries, Jackson Dawson, made an abid- 
ing place for himself in the science of hybridizing. 
The library and herbarium of the arboretum are 

17^ 



THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 

of great and steadily growing importance. The 
library has thirty-one thousand bound volumes 
and eight thousand pamphlets, including "all the 
books in all languages, relating in any way to 
trees, their uses and cultivation." 

Two beauties of the arboretum not always dwelt 
upon in print are the beautiful use of grass and 
the beautiful arrangement of backgrounds. The 
beauty of grass is emphasized in the arboretum. 
Grass walks are delightfully introduced. Trees 
and shrubs stand out against a smooth turf back- 
ground, and nowhere is turf better employed to 
give a sense of order than between the long beds 
where shrubs from all parts of the world are found. 
For a thing to look at always, there is nothing so 
beautiful as grass in spring, in its fresh greenness; 
in summer, with its inviting coolness of color; in 
autumn with its reminiscent green; and in winter, 
in time of melting snows, gi'ass gives a delight 
which is a hope as well. It is a marvellous floor 
for shadow and for sunlight — an incomparable 
background for the play of foliage; and, beyond 
all, a reach of fine greensward carries always to 
the mind the suggestion of finish, ease, tranquil- 
lity. 

And while we speak of backgrounds, how won- 

173 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

derfully is this prime feature of landscape-garden- 
ing managed in the arboretum. The magnoHas 
against the dark foliage of conifers, the lovely rose- 
pink kalmia or laurel against the spruce of Hem- 
lock Hill — perhaps the great glory of the ar- 
boretum this, and a sight which many have crossed 
oceans to see, the rhododendrons against other 
evergreens. One could not fancy a nobler sight 
in growing things than that lately seen of pink- 
blooming laurel backed by the wonderful dark 
foliage of evergreens up Hemlock Hill. And in 
what masterly fashion the kalmia has been planted 
"up along" among the dark conifers, giving the 
whole range of lovely shrubs the effect of having 
come of its own will out of the dark wood to the 
full sun of June. 

Our saddest aesthetic failing in this country is 
our lack of feeling for the lit. Towns are planned 
unsuitably (equivalent to no planning at all, 
which is the case with most of them); streets 
run unsuitably; the absolutely unsuitable house 
appears everywhere. The planting of our streets 
and places, small and large, is for the most part 
unsuitable. The garden lies too often without 
a boundary — thus contradicting the very mean- 
ing of the lovely word garden; too often appears 

174 



THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 

the pergola, ugly, out of proportion, leading no- 
where, with absolutely no reason for existence. 
We should preach, says Professor Sargent, the 
importance of trees and shrubs with showy flowers 
as a background for every flower-garden. Such 
plants are too much neglected by persons in this 
country who are making flower-gardens and who 
forget that a garden depends as much on its sur- 
roundings and background as it does on its im- 
mediate contents. Most persons seem to think 
that if they have two or three beds of larkspur 
and phlox, and a brick walk, a fountain, a pergola 
with climbing roses, a garden seat — the whole 
in a bare field without any special reference to or 
connection with the house or anything else — they 
have made a garden. 

How soon shall we realize that for the tree and 
shrub material for such enclosings as every garden 
should have, we may see at the arboretum the 
very subjects needed for these purposes with 
manifold suggestions as to grouping and placing 
for best landscape effects ? We go now in countless 
numbers to the great national parks of the West. 
This is well. This trains the eye to beauty, the 
heart to love of country. We go thither at great 
expense, great expenditure of time and of conve- 

175 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

nience to see a grandeur, inspiring but impossible 
of reproduction in miniature. To Boston most 
of us may go without many of the disadvantages 
just mentioned and with the certainty of knowing 
that here too, we shall see pictures in trees and 
shrubs, on hill and in valley, and along the stream- 
side, a beauty of an intimate and finished kind, 
therefore a beauty upon which we can fitly model 
our own domain, large or small though this may 
be. Let us look for an instant at this charm- 
ing illustration in which lilacs are the sub- 
jects, and before commenting upon it let me 
remind the reader that over one hundred and sixty 
named varieties of the lilac are to be found in 
the arboretum. Among these some of the finest 
are Congo, Marie Legraye, Philemon, Bleuatre, 
Belle de Nancy, Gloire des Moulins, these six 
giving a wide range of variety in color. And does 
the reader know the two species lilacs, Syringa 
pubescens and Syringa mllosa? If not, let me 
assure him that these, which appear in great beauty 
in the arboretum, will give him a new sensation 
in flowering shrubs. To stand before any of these 
in full flower, in the arboretum, is like standing 
before a shrine, yet there is a larger admiration 
we may feel if we but see this place with open eyes. 

176 



THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 

Notice in this picture the placing of these great 
lilac-trees, for such they are become. They are 
far enough from each other to have reached their 
best development of form; they make a hedge or 
screen of Interesting type between walk and road; 
they are so placed that the trees in the distance 
afford a delicate background of green for the strong 
outlines of flowering lilac In the foreground. 

In such ways have all these plantings been 
thought out. Here for the amateur gardener are 
four matters to be learned by one glance at this 
picture, or, better yet, by visiting the spot — the 
infinite variety of beautiful lilacs he may get if he 
wants them, their value as a screen, their beauty 
in the border, and their use in the composing of an 
open-air picture. And besides lilacs — to mention 
one or two other shrubs — the loniceras, the vi- 
burnums. The former, L. Maachii, has larger 
white flowers than any of the bush honeysuckles. 
The bright-red fruit is very handsome, and re- 
mains on the branches long after the leaves have 
fallen. In these bush honeysuckles alone, mag- 
nificent subjects for our gardens, estates, and 
parks, we have treasure untold for fine effects. 
They must have room, but their rapid growth and 
superb appearance deserve the space they need. 

177 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

As for the viburnums, they are here in numbers, 
and who that has seen and caught the fragrance of 
V. Carlesii can ever forget this rare white-flow- 
ered shrub from Korea? The diligent gardener, 
the amateur who not only works in but longs to 
improve his garden by notable additions thereto, 
will understand me when I say that I cannot go 
to the arboretum without coveting — yes, actually 
coveting — most of the fine things there to be seen. 
And this is a legitimate coveting. Arboreta and 
botanical gardens are intended to stimulate a 
wholesome desire not only for knowledge but for 
acquisition for experiment on one's own pai*t. 
As though it were yesterday, I remember my first 
visit to Kew Gardens, London. It was on a Sun- 
day and a child was with me. In the distance 
suddenly a cloud of lavender bloom some three 
feet tall took my eye; on reaching it, I saw it to be 
Phlox decussata, Eugene Danzanvilliers, now read- 
ily obtainable here, then unknown in American 
nurseries. So lovely was it, so eager was I to 
make note of its name, that having no paper, 
caught thus in the barrenness of a London Sunday, 
I persuaded the child to allow me to use its little 
back as a writing-table and made note of the name 
upon a handkerchief. But I contend that curi- 

178 



THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 

osity is a virtue. I approve of people who are 
curious. I pity those who have no curiosity, 
especially in the direction of things that grow. 
In the arboretum I venture to assert that the most 
learned in plants and trees must have that feeling 
so dear to the collector of "What is thatf The 
unknown, the beautiful, the striking unknown is 
here before the eyes; and the tantalizingness of it 
lasts only long enough to add to the pleasure, to 
make that pleasure piquant. One knows that no 
sooner is the foot of plant or tree reached than 
there is its name in clear letters, and the pencil 
and the note-book complete the acquisition of 
this delightful learning. 

If I may repeat — it is in the matter of settings 
for our gardens, that we are so uninstructed. No 
backgrounds of green, no hedges, no appreciation 
of what a garden should be as a whole and as a 
part of a picture. Most of us are quite as willing 
to see delphiniums against the clapboards of a 
garage as against the background of shrubs, which 
might and should conceal those clapboards. The 
reason for such willingness is not far to seek. It 
is because the ugliness and unsuitableness of such 
placings has not been made clear to us by com- 
parison, comment, or criticism. What we lose in 

179 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

beauty year after year by failure to realize this 
principle of the need of background, is a piteous 
thing. The smallest bit of ground may be a pic- 
ture, if little trees and dwarf shrubs are used. 
Flowers should be the garlanding, so to speak, 
the ornamentation of the finished structure, and 
not its main feature. 

The old English practice of using flowering trees 
in all flower-gardens should be followed everywhere 
in our country. In our most beautiful gardens this 
is so. The flowering tree gives permanency to the 
garden, and when we have seen, as at the arbore- 
tum, the perfect beauty of such things as the flow- 
ering crab-apples — Prunus Sargentii, Prunus sub- 
hirtella, Malus Arnoldiana — shall we be satisfied 
with gardens which lack these ? Never. Shall we 
be content without the delicious hardy azaleas, 
running fires in our spring borders? Beyond our 
garden walls shall we not wish for the lovely 
overhanging crab, like a veiled bride among the 
young green all about? This and much else you 
may see in the Arnold Arboretum. Arrange to 
make pilgrimage there this very May. Plan to 
get others to go with you; they will see what 
you will not, and point that out to you. Leave 
at home your mirror or other small accessory, 

180 



THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 

but do not leave your note-book; for the crowning 
satisfaction of this adorable place is that most of 
the trees and plants there may now be bought by 
any one from certain nurseries whose names the 
Arboretum office willingly gives to interested per- 
sons. How many years, how much labor and 
disappointment are saved by those who visit such 
a place as this, and who are advised by the sight 
of the fine trees and shrubs, whose value is here 
tested and shown ! Nowhere in the world can 
these things be grown so well as in America — 
not in Europe, not elsewhere. It is only com- 
mon sense to develop the trees and plants which 
will flourish with us. In Europe these same 
things — as, for instance, the lilacs, the vibur- 
nums, indeed, all the flowering shrubs — neither 
blossom nor fruit so well. Foreigners who see the 
arboretum in spring or in autumn are all amazed at 
the beauty and wealth of fruit and flower. And 
again: with the variety of shrubs shown in the 
arboretum to be successful, it is possible to have 
shrubs in flower every month in the year. Ha- 
mamelis mollis, the Japanese witch-hazel, blooms 
in Boston in January and February, and in March 
the willows are out. Here is a tiding over of 
the rigors of winter; a current of living interest 

181 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

thus flows throughout the bitterest and dullest 
months. 

What thoughtful, what imaginative mind can 
fail to see in the present great movement toward 
thrift a powerful accompanying movement toward 
beauty ? Is it possible that the American will con- 
tent himself with vegetable growing? With our 
temperament we shall make vegetables into step- 
ping-stones to higher things. Man must have 
beauty; and of all the sources from which the 
highest beauty may — will — flow, there is none 
to surpass the great Arboretum at Boston. 

And where else can be found such true happiness 
in learning? Not in stuffy theatre or concert- 
room; not in walled-in museums of inanimate, of 
dead things; but here, under the sky, with things 
that bud and bloom, things in which one feels the 
constant beat of life; here where living objects 
make living pictures; where color varies with 
each hour; where composition is freshly fine at 
every turn of drive or path; here is, indeed, the 
Baconian purest of earthly pleasures. There is 
in America nothing more sound, more necessary, 
more beautiful than this museum of plants. 

People predicted, after the war, a new heaven 
and a new earth. As to the new heaven, who can 

182 



THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM 

say ? But for the new earth I say, yes — there is 
one aheady. The things of the earth, man's work 
on, in, and with it, have taken on an importance 
never known to us before. Men, women, and chil- 
dren all are producing the very bread they eat. 
No one who has once come into contact with the 
earth by growing either crops or garden stuff can 
or will stop there. The inner desire for beauty is 
too strong for him; next year and in all the follow- 
ing years flowers, shrubs, trees will be the coveted 
matters. And as this tide of feeling grows, as 
grow it must and will, we shall need as never be- 
fore such a temple of beauty as the Arnold Ar- 
boretum. Then will the people crowd to its gates 
as not heretofore in its history, to admire, to en- 
joy, above all to learn; and each man, having 
learned, shall be prepared to add his share to the 
wisest, finest improving of his part of the land in 
which we dwell. 



183 



XI 



SPANISH GARDENS AND A 
CALIFORNIA PLANTING 



Indeed, as much as I love to have summer in summer, 
I am tired of this weather — it parches the leaves, makes 
the turf crisp, claps the doors, blows the papers about, 
and keeps one in a constant mist that gives no dew but 
might as well be smoke. The sun sets like a pewter 
plate, red-hot; and then in a moment, appears the moon, 
at a distance of the same complexion, just as the same 
orb in a moving picture serves for both. 
— HoEACE Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossoey, 
Strawberry HUl, July 15, 1783. 



XI 

SPANISH GARDENS AND A 
CALIFORNIA PLANTING 

Como oasis de poesia, en las llanuras de Espana, se 
encuentran los jardines que he ido espigando, antes de 
que acaben de borrarse. Largo es el camino para encon- 
trarlos. For cada tupido ramillete de verdor que se 
encuentre acurrucado junto al caseron antiguo, o en el 
fondo de un valle, o al abrigo de las montafias, encon- 
trareis horas y boras de yerma sequedad para las plantas 
y para la mirada. For cada ramo de color, extensas 
soledades de campos esteriles; por cada flor, inacabables 
lineas de terrones, sin una hierba, sin el amor de un arbol, 
sin el rumor de una fuente, sin un refugio para el alma 
que quiera tenderse a la sombra. 

— Santiago Rusinol. 

/^N my table as I write lie a few packets of seed 
^-^ of wallflowers, petunias, Canterbury bells, 
in narrow little white envelopes, bearing this in- 
scription stamped at one end — Spalla Hermanos, 
Establecimiento de Horticultura, 31 Lopez de 
Hoyos-31, Jardin, Madrid. These small objects 
from Spain stir the recollection of a month in that 
land of brightness and of melancholy, and turn my 
thoughts to the gardens of Castile, of Granada, of 

187 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Aranjuez. Confessing, however, at once to no 
first-hand knowledge of private gardens in Spain, 
and to Httle of those open to the pubHc, I may add 
that always I have watched for some printed word 
concerning the gardens that one fancies as beyond 
the walls in every Spanish town and city. With 
what happy anticipation did I send for the French 
translation of the Spanish play, "Aux Jardins de 
Murcie," my horticultural hopes high, as when the 
first word of Masefield's "Daffodil Fields" reached 
my ear; none but a gardener can fully share with 
me the blankness of disappointment on finding 
that these writings with lovely names dealt only 
with tragedy and blood. 

The public gardens of Spain cannot be forgotten 
by those who Ivnow them. I recall the sombre im- 
pression of the gardens of the Escorial, those gar- 
dens of "broad terraces with trim box hedges, but 
on the whole possessing more architecture than 
vegetation." I remember the deliciously flowered 
terrace of the Generalife; the bright fountains, the 
flowers, the myrtles of the gardens of the Alham- 
bra; the charming Parque Maria Luisa of Seville, 
but, more than these, the rich loveliness there of 
the gardens of the Alcazar. Hare's words describe 
these well: "Behind the Alcazar, approached by a 

188 



SPANISH GARDENS 

separate entrance, are its lovely gardens laid out 
by Charles Y, an absolute blaze of sunshine and 
beauty, where between myrtle hedges and terraces 
lined with brilliant tulips and ranunculuses, foun- 
tains spring up on either side of the path, and 
gradually rising higher and higher, unite, and dance 
together through the flowers. Beyond the more 
formal gardens are ancient orange groves covered 
with fruit. The ground is littered with their golden 
balls. 'There are so many,' the gardener said, *it 
is not worth while to pick them up.' We gathered 
as many as we liked, and felt that no one knew 
what an orange was who had not tasted the sunny 
fruit of Seville." 

The gardens of Cadiz, too, are said to be mar- 
vels of flowery beauty, with geraniums, ixias, helio- 
tropes. My only intimate personal recollection, 
however, is of the romantic garden of a convent 
near Seville. That garden, on a day of April some 
fifteen years ago, is a bright memory still, with its 
tree-shaded alleys, its long, narrow walks, radiating 
from a central circle where tea-roses were in early 

spring bloom. It was Mme. B , a lovely and 

gifted Irishwoman and a preceptress of the con- 
vent, now my friend and correspondent of years, 
who through her young pupils learned of a rare 

189 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

book of Spanish gardens, and passed tha,t word to 
me. The title of this precious portfolio, reproduc- 
tions of a painter's work, is " Jardines de Espana,*' 
by Santiago Rusinol. The book is pubHshed in 
Madrid by the Sociedad Anonimo, San Marcos 42, 
and sold in the same city by Don Fernando Fe, 
Libreria, Puerto del Sol, 15. Some forty plates, 
loose-leaved, are found within stiff paper covers of 
Spanish yellow tied with yellow ribbons, and these 
pictures are prefaced not only by a few pages from 
the artist himself but by several poems in praise 
of the gardens of Spain and of their interpretation 
here by a painter with rare poetic feeling. By no 
other way could one approach these gardens shown 
by Rusinol than by the way of poetry, fit ante- 
chamber to the collection within where, in sun 
and in shadow, poetry itself is felt. 

To choose from among these pictures a few for 
comment has been difficult; but certain ones shall 
be touched upon in an attempt to give some idea 
of the type of garden of a country whose private 
pleasaunces are doubtless much better known to 
horticulture and to art than they are to me. 

Taking now almost at random a dozen of these 
pictures, it is not strange that in nine out of the 
twelve one sees water; fountains in eight, a deep 

190 



SPANISH GARDENS 

pool in the ninth. The general aridity of Spain, 
its burning sun, and that knowledge from Moorish 
times of the beautiful use of water, suggest them- 
selves by the cool streams of fountains in these 
gardens. The glorieta, a green pavilion or arbor 
formed of cypress-trees, trained and clipped to 
simulate the Gothic, is the other striking feature 
of these Spanish plates. This has a strange beauty 
— its sloping arches, its finials even, cut in dark- 
green foliage; and, as the trees seem to be very 
slender in themselves, the effect is light and grace- 
ful, except where the cypress is set more closely 
together and allowed, as in the picture "Camino de 
Rosales" (Aranjuez), to form a thick and matted 
bower. Here the glorieta forms a central feature 
for a great garden on level land, backed by moun- 
tains; the solidity of the glorieta's green walls is 
relieved by a series of detached arches of cypress, 
forming entrances to narrow-hedged and flower- 
bordered walks, which radiate in six or eight direc- 
tions outward from the green pavilion. "Nido de 
Cipreses," evidently a painting in detail of the 
first-named subject, shows this designing with 
beautiful clearness. In the plate "Camino de 
Alfabia" (Mallorca), a noble pergola is seen; col- 
umns rising from a low wall, light arches above; an 

191 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

important fountain with two basins superimposed 
and a jet, the terminal feature; dark alleys of trees 
beyond this. Few or no flowers appear here; one 
or two leafless stems of grape run over the lightly 
arched roof of the pergola; it is, however, its floor 
that arrests attention. This is a delightful floor 
of cobblestones, with a diamondlike pattern run- 
ning through it, laid in transverse lines of large 
brick or narrow stones. 

"Cipreses Viejos" (Granada) shows a lovely 
effect of repetition of planting; through a round 
group of ancient cypresses, so old that as in our 
own red cedars all lower boughs are gone, one sees 
at the far end of the walk, intercepted by this 
group, a glorieta formed of younger trees of the 
same type. From this simple arrangement Kusi- 
fiol has made a superbly decorative picture. There 
is even a bit of humor lurking here in the infinitesi- 
mal jet of water in the open space amidst those 
tall and ancient trees. In Granada too, at Viznar, 
was the lovely picture made, "Jardin Abando- 
nado." And here, as its name at once suggests, 
no waters flow from the fine central fountain; but 
above dark formal hedges fruit-trees are in flower, 
and the figures, from their niches in the fagade of 
the palace, seem still to be gazing upon spring 

192 



SPANISH GARDENS 

gaiety, that gaiety which centuries cannot quench. 
*'Cipreses Dorados," with its marvellous drawing 
and tones of pale violet, green, and gold, is one of 
the most delightful of all these pictures. The light 
of the setting sun upon this group of old trees en- 
circling the silvery fountain and coloring all the 
ground below, is transcribed here with surpassing 
skill and charm. "Salon de los Reyes Catolicos" 
(Aranjuez) gives noble decorative suggestions for 
gardens of Florida or of California — a double ave- 
nue of trees, apparently eucalyptus, reaching far 
into the distance, these flanked beyond outer walks 
by dense shrubberies, and the whole faced by a 
charming parterre of low-clipped hedges. The 
lines of green surround a broad basin of marble, a 
group of marble figures as its centre. The little 
formal garden of green outlines — there are as 
many as four concentric circles of green hedge — is 
punctuated at regular intervals by low balls of 
what may be clipped box but is probably not that. 
At all events, the beauty of this picture, its roman- 
tic charm, and the splendor of its original concep- 
tion as a decorative idea for a great garden are 
things one would not have been content to miss. 
What poetry in the painting "Granada de 
Noche " ! The full moon, yet low over the moun- 

193 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

tain, the great shaft of water from the fountain in 
the foreground, whitened by the moon, and yet 
more white because of its setting of dark hedge 
and of encircling masses of cypress. And what a 
melancholy poetry in that bold and gloomy pic- 
ture "Paseo Mistico" (Montserrat) . The long 
alley of cypress-trees, their pointed darkness 
echoed by the bright-pointed cliffs beyond; that 
sad and drooping figure of a beautiful woman on 
the stone bench to the right; the sunlit flowers 
against the woman's dress in dramatic contrast to 
the whole ! Of the richness of color and beauty of 
composition of such pictures as "Fuente de la 
Odalisca" and of "Arquitectura Verde," both at 
Granada, I have not words in which to write. But 
that one of all of these to which I turn of tenest, and 
in which I find that suddenness of happiness which 
comes not often, is that one called "El Laberinto'* 
(Barcelona). Here the daring of this painter, his 
strong draftsmanship and the magnificence of 
his color, all contribute finely to set forth his con- 
ception of a garden at once sombre and beautiful. 
Set in the midst of a dark labyrinth of tall cj^ress 
hedge is a round pool, like a black opal from the 
deep reflected blue of a sky of evening. Arched 
openings of trimmed cypress lead into the teasing 

194; 



SPANISH GARDENS 

walks; an austere adornment of marble busts 
against walls of living green is the only detail. 
Beyond the level tops of a great expanse of wind- 
ing hedge dark natural tree masses are seen, 
pointed and rounding; and far below in all the 
color and the glow of sunset lie the shore, the sea. 

From Spain to California is a mental transition 
easily accomplished. Toward sunset the inde- 
scribable grays of the velvety California moun- 
tains, with long indigo shadows in their folds, hold 
the eye. Below these stand a line of glorious 
sycamore-trees, their winter leaves of burnished 
copper shining in the sun above rounding fields, 
thinly veiled in the green of a spring crop. It is 
this remarkable juxtaposition of the bright brown 
and rich blue, sycamore leaf and mountain shadow, 
which captivates the traveller on the first sight of 
California in January. The sunlight through gray 
interlacing branches of olive-trees in the orchards, 
too, creates beautiful purple shadows on the fresh- 
ploughed soil beneath, and gives a wondrous feel- 
ing of the spring. In fact, January and part of 
February are the spring in southern California. 

At Coronado, as one stands on a little eminence 
trying not to see the hotel — that hotel which 
creates perfect comfort within its walls and un- 

195 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

equalled discomfort by its outward aspect — and 
looks away toward the fine range of mountains in 
Lower California, really Mexico, the picture is all 
in long horizontal lines below the peaks. Lines of 
blue for the waters of San Diego Bay and Glorieta 
Bay, lines of white for the little white cities along 
the shores. Running from Coronado into Glorieta 
Bay, really a blue lake, is a line of green, a point of 
land ending in a small bit called Prospect Park. 
Blue, green, violet; the mountains are oftenest 
veiled in lavender or purple, and in the midst of 
this color, set like a topaz on a band of soft-striped 
ribbon, stands a little house of cement made to 
look like adobe, a house of one story, a house built, 
as an aviator son first informed me, around a little 
court, not called a patio, but a plazita. The fact 
is that this house is in style pure Santa Fe Mission 
— all is absolutely true to type — there is no archi- 
tectural compromise except perhaps in such mat- 
ters as openings for light, air, and entrance. 

The house, the property of Mrs. Robert, of San 
Francisco, and designed by Mr. William Temple- 
ton Johnson, of San Diego, is of a rather rich ochre 
in color. Its window -frames and the grille of the 
door are painted a dark cobalt-blue. Framing this 
house, when I saw it, on two sides lay a lovely 

196 



SPANISH GARDENS 

tropical or subtropical garden, a young garden not 
four years old, and because of spring's beginning 
in Coronado in December, a winter garden as yet. 
Here were not many flowers, but what there were 
showed orange and yellow bloom. Calendula and 
troUius were conspicuous and the effect with the 
house walls was delicious. The beauty of line of the 
little house is clearly shown in the illustration op- 
posite page 198. The beauty of the garden at 
the time of which I write lay in its foliage-color, 
foliage-forms, and the arrangement of these. An 
artist hath done this thing, exclaimed I to myself, 
as I walked into the little garden. Standing at the 
blue entrance-door, and looking down a slightly 
curved walk to the street, it is the planting on 
either side of the walk that first arrests one. On 
the right, back of the low border, is a wonderfully 
fine arrangement of the cylindrical cacti known as 
the Mexican "Organ Pipe," and Cereus spacianus, 
one of the choicest of bloomers; also, here are a 
few low-growing varieties. Tall and dwarf these 
are, but so well set with regard to each other as to 
be of quite startling interest as a group. To the 
left again, beyond the border, were long, irregular 
colonies of lovely gray-leaved things. When first 
I saw this house I thought I had never seen a 

197 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

sweeter picture, and this was partly because of its 
setting of garden, but also because of the rare 
beauty of that garden itself. Gray and green 
foliage and flowers of yellow, orange, and lemon 
hues were delightfully used in the small stretches 
of ground lying about the house. The place covers 
less than one-fourth of an acre. 

On first seeing the garden I thought the color 
the captivating thing. Then said I, no, it is the 
arrangement of form, the subtle knowledge of how 
to place things. Finally I realized that it was 
both. Miss Kate 0. Sessions, of San Diego, whose 
work in gardening is well known, and whose name 
is synonymous with great knowledge of the trees, 
shrubs, and flowers of this region, and with the 
beautiful use of such things, planned and executed 
this Coronado garden, to please the owner, who 
wished the planting to fit the architecture, to be a 
bit of New Mexico transplanted. 

To return, however, after too long a digression. 
Here, to the right of the entrance-porch and be- 
yond a blue-framed window, is a Hopi ladder 
leaning casually against the ochre of the wall. 
This serves as support for a climbing aloe, the 
burnt-orange flowers pointing upward above its 
leaves. Around the corner of the northeast wall 

198 



SPANISH GARDENS 

IS a beautiful climber, cliorizema, with spraylike 
buds which as flowers will show rainbow colors. 
Near by is a fine plant of Romneya Coulteri, or 
Matilija poppy, and beyond that a bearing lemon- 
tree in front of the kitchen window. Farther on 
are fig-trees and guavas. Hanging above the en- 
trance-porch, or loggia, of the house is an entranc- 
ing growth of the orange-colored trumpet-vine, 
Bignonia venusta, in full bloom all winter. The 
vine literally drips flowers. The small, vivid 
orange trumpets against a background of bright- 
green leaves make the most perfect possible fram- 
ing for the entrance-porch below. This small 
porch has a floor of tile, and, as I have said, a 
Spanish grille door of blue, of such a blue. On 
either side of the porch stand specimen bushes of 
streptosolen, with its clusters of velvet flowers in 
all the hues of Gladiolus primulinus hybrids. 
These carry the eye easily and delightfully up to 
the colored hanging above. At the outer edge of 
the tiled porch floor there is a border of the gray- 
blue grass, Festucay like a delicate reflection of the 
sky. On the ochre wall beyond is the streptoso- 
len, covered with its vivid flowers and delicate yel- 
low buds. The blue-framed casement windows 
are just above the orange-shaded streptosolen, and 

199 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

on the ground a border of winter-blooming orange 
ice-plant, Mesembryanthemum auranticum, gives in- 
tensity to the color scheme. 

Standing at the street end of the cement walk 
leading from the street to the entrance-porch, this 
picture in flowers must be the envy of many a 
Californian whose eyes are set toward" subtropical 
beauty. The cement walk is bordered by a three- 
foot strip of the small creeping Convolvulus mauri- 
tanicus, now entirely green but later a sheet of 
gray-blue bloom from April until October. At the 
extreme right stands a long, loosely arranged group 
of magnificent aloes, in several varieties, holding 
great spears of scarlet and yellow flowers far above 
their twisting leaves. Below these are other and 
smaller aloes, with leaf colors which one might 
think reminiscent of a dusky sunset — a remark- 
able glow, even a suggestion of rose in these leaves 
of blue-green. Before this aloe group are great 
heaps and mounds, lower and higher — but never 
higher than two feet — of great white things, such 
as Centaurea maritima, and beyond all these, 
nearer to the house, sheets of sweet alyssum in 
full bloom, with a broad line of gray-foliaged bor- 
der plants, santolina, behind which thrive a va- 
riety of sedums and crassula two feet high, and 
the rare Portulacaria afra. 

200 



SPANISH GARDENS 

Looking now toward the left of the walk, the 
character of the planting is different. On a slight 
mound is the effective group of cacti previously 
mentioned, which give a semi-humorous impres- 
sion. They seem to people the ground. One re- 
members the phrase, "Men as trees walking." 
Those who know this cactus will understand; yet 
the beauty of it here is very great. The ground 
beneath and around is covered with the purple- 
flowering Verbena venosa and the beach strawberry 
native about San Francisco. This has a wonderful 
dark foliage and plenty of large white flowers, but 
no fruit. Beyond the cacti, just overlapping them, 
is a very widely spaced group of grasslike plants, 
dasylirions, in three varieties, which give this part 
of the garden the look of having been gone over 
by an etcher's needle. The threadlike effect is 
only partly given in the illustration. More of 
the low purple verbena, next a large American 
agave, silvery green and gray on the shining, green 
carpet of the strawberry leaves; then Phormium 
tenax, or New Zealand flax, a valuable fibre-plant; 
Yucca baccata and Dracaena draco rise above the 
masses of escholtzias, with their orange flames; 
more blue-gray agaves, yellow sedums rising from 
groups of lemon-yellow gazanias, all backed by a 
handsome shrub of Grevillea ihelemaniana, and a 

201 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

group of the fernlike trde, Lyonothamnus floribunda, 
a native of the Santa Barbara Islands. 

We have now come around the house to the 
southwest side, following a narrow curving walk, 
and find here more massed planting, partly to 
screen out the service region, partly as a back- 
ground for the house itself. Here stand the fern- 
leaved trees just mentioned, here are well-grown 
groups of Acacia latifolia, and here, toward the 
street again, are spreading the Cactus opuntia, 
thornless and thorny, with the bright orange- 
blooming Dimorphotheca aurantiaca all over the 
ground against and beneath the cactus-green. 
Wherever such masses of flowers occur, the fore- 
ground is apt to be cut by a yucca or an agave of 
different varieties, or by some other plant, bold 
and distinct in character, such as Echium simplex, 
a honey plant of the Azores. This virile use of 
such plants is one of the many characteristics of 
the small place under discussion. There is no 
lawn nor hedge nor fence in the front of this gar- 
den, but along the front a border three to six feet 
wide is composed of four sorts of mesembryanthe- 
mum, variable as to texture and color and well 
placed for effect, which is very brilliant from May 
to October. The broad parking space outside of 

202 




c y. 



SPANISH GARDENS 

the cement sidewalk is filled with the orange- 
colored gazct-nia, which likewise is in bloom from 
April to October. These masses of color are like 
a miniature copy of the wild-flower fields of Coro- 
nado when it was only a rabbit-and-quail park 
and there was plenty of rain. 

Also, one of the charms of this place Hes in 
the restrained use of creepers against the house. 
Fancy what this restraint means in such a climate. 
The temptation there is, I observe, to allow the 
vines of quick growth to suffocate the house. Its 
outlines gasp for breath. All sense of form is lost, 
and the unrestrained ficus and bignonia come in 
for a share of the blame. In the same manner 
precisely, and for the same reason, the scarlet 
geranium is condemned by the visitor to southern 
California. It should not be; it is only badly, very 
badly used there by the mass of the people. Now 
and again one sees it superb, well-grown, well- 
groomed, perfectly placed. Time will surely bring 
to all of southern California, as it has to much of 
it already, an understanding of the need for struc- 
tural green perhaps more easily and more quickly 
supplied there than in any other part ol the coun- 
try. The perfect example in this, as in many 
other things, is there in the San Diega Exposition 

203 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

grounds and buildings — an ideal, a gleam to fol- 
low, which has been and will be followed in the 
architecture and gardening of that part of the 
United States. What fine opportunities there to 
realize the truth of that sentence from "Stud- 
ies in Gardening": "A single flowering shrub 
rightly placed in front of a dark barrier of greenery- 
has your eye to itself, and satisfies it like an altar- 
piece in a quiet church." When such things are 
brought to pass commonly, not only in such places 
as Montecito and others one might mention, there 
will have sprung into being in that part of the 
State a true paradise for lovers of the best gar- 
dening. 

During that winter in southern California many 
pleasant horticultural experiences befell me. Of 
these, one of the most exciting was suddenly to be 
presented with a cluster of enchanting flowers, 
three varieties, not one of which I had ever seen 
before, and of not one of which did I know the 
name. They were Billhergia nutans, Strelitzia, and 
Lopezia. Never have I had a more singular sen- 
sation than in seeing these for the first time. It 
was like meeting with a stranger whose very lan- 
guage I could not identify. But the language of 
beauty was clear. What melting rose-color in 

£04 



SPANISH GARDENS 

the fuchsia-like billbergia, what delicious green- 
blue-rose in the strelitzia, and what grace and 
delicacy in the flowers of the mosquito-plant, the 
three together forming an arrangement as lovely 
in effect of color as in form of subject. Another 
marvel to me was Fremontia calif ornica or mexi- 
cana. This has bright-brown, woolly, curving 
branches. Up the stem at intervals of about four 
inches appear three beautiful leaves, more the 
color and texture of those of English ivy than 
like others, and a flower. The leaves are in 
groups, one large, two small, very elegant in out- 
line, and held away from their stem in most in- 
teresting fashion. The five-petalled flower is of 
vivid, clear yellow within and of burnt orange 
without, if one could imagine such color. 

On a day in late March I spent some hours in 
the region of San Diego, toward the Sweetwater 
Valley, and near the towns of Chula Vista and 
National City. On the San Diego side of the 
Coronado ferry two friends awaited me, and we 
soon left the city in the distance, stopping first to 
see a very complete garden belonging to Mrs. B. 
Here cypress, pine, and other trees had made in 
four short years that phenomenal growth only pos- 
sible in this soft climate; here was a pleasant, for- 

205 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

mal garden, the walks outlined by rough blocks of 
hard-pan of the locality, set on edge, in color pre- 
cisely right for the position. Here too I saw a 
most beautiful use of the geranium, tall bushes of 
the superb variety of scarlet. General Grant, in 
vivid bloom, against the brown-shingled wall of a 
house, with that shining-leaved shrub, one of the 
glories in California in shrubs, coprosma, set in 
between the geraniums. 

On, then, to Mrs. D.*s twelve acres, boasting a 
greater variety in vegetation than is often seen 
together, various kinds of figs, of almonds, the 
young green fruit and nuts already formed upon 
the twigs, an Australian flame-tree, loquats, 
cumquats, a fine orange grove in which a tractor 
was already turning under tall rye as fertilizer. 
Every vegetable is grown here; five thousand young 
plants of the Chinese sacred lily, alfalfa, montbre- 
tias, from among which a Japanese gardener was 
hoeing out seedlings of castor-beans grown there 
last year and determined to grow again. Fine 
poultry and Jersey cattle completed this "Twelve 
Acres and Liberty." From this small ranch spread 
out in every direction a delicious scene in those 
gray-greens of California mountains, mesas, val- 
leys, touched in places with the different yellow* 

£06 



SPANISH GARDENS 

greens of spring. Indoors, upon the tea-table, in 
a room flooded with the vivid sun of California, 
stood a brilliant assemblage of flowers; indeed, I 
thought — it might have been that wondrous sun, it 
might have been the atmosphere of warm hospital- 
ity around us, but it seemed to me I had never 
seen flowers quite so gay. A round bowl was 
filled with these: yellow daffodils, freesias of the 
purest white, purple lupine, escholtzia, nastur- 
tiums in deeper and Hghter tones of orange and 
yellow, mignonette. Two more flowers gave this 
lovely arrangement the special interest to me of 
novelty; many sprays of the white allium added 
delicacy to the mass, and scattered here and there 
throughout the group was the charming agathea, 
that little lavender-blue daisy-like flower, which 
does so much for southern California gardens in 
March. 

A neighboring house, Italianesque, and most 
charming in line and color, gave me a lovely mem- 
ory in flowers. Along a cream-white wall of 
stucco three things made a picture of enviable 
beauty: long lavender tassels of Japanese wistaria 
hung with inimitable grace against this wall at 
one end, not thickly, but lightly; color, line, 
shadow, were all here in perfection. And set fur- 

207 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

ther along this wall stood two low, rounding 
shrubs in full deep-purple flower, a polygala, I 
think. The eye was led from the creeper, all 
grace and delicacy, to the related tone below, where 
so suitably the more solid subject wore the richer 
hue. I lingered long here, for who can lightly 
leave a bit of architecture and of gardening which 
really satisfies ? 

Then to a little Spanish house upon a hill, but 
so hidden with hedge of cypress, with great groups 
of eucalyptus and acacia, that until we approached 
the arched entrance, cut in the plaster wall, one 
could not have said with certainty, "Here is a 
house." A delightful oblong terrace of turf lay at 
one end of the house, velvet blooms of streptosolen 
hanging infrequently over the stucco terrace- wall. 
These unimaginable, unapproachable flowers of the 
streptosolen have all the colors of Mr. Kunderd's 
Primulinus hybrids among gladioli. They may be 
compared to loose clusters of primroses, in hues of 
orange to pale lemon-color. Around a corner we 
found a beauteous fan-shaped rose-garden, with 
many standards coming into bloom, and beyond 
this, down the slopes of rock and gravel among 
acacia-trees, a natural-looking carpet of low peren- 
nial flowers. A look into the little plazita of the 

208 



SPANISH GARDENS 

house, with its clear pool, and we took our way 
again along the course of the Sweetwater River to 
the ranch of Mrs. M. C. Here the house is again 
on an eminence, but pure New England colonial in 
type, a frame house painted white. Again the 
cypress hedge, incredibly high, gateways cut in the 
living green and outlined with old-fashioned trel- 
lised arches set in the hedge openings. Various 
small, formal gardens are well disposed about the 
house, fine greensward everywhere and a tennis 
court of clay on the edge of the height overlooking 
valley and mountain range. The court is outlined 
by a white treillage of light, graceful arches; and 
between the arches roses climb in early bloom. 
Pink of the pink Cherokee, white with gold sta- 
mens of the true Cherokee, a wreathing of roses on 
a, good framework against a distant landscape of 
gray-green and lavender. I noticed in these gar- 
dens, too, an extremely good placing of rose-pink 
Watsonia, blooming below a Cherokee rose of the 
same hue. 

Back, then, to one of the objective points of this 
afternoon's drive, the five acres of lemon-trees of 
Mrs. G. Old trees these, and so cultivated and 
cared for that a record yield occurred this year — 
fifteen hundred odd boxes of fine fruit. Four hun- 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

dred chickens supply all the fertilizer used upon 
this lemon orchard. I leave the reader to judge if 
this is not the best obtainable. 

I was much impressed with the work of the six- 
teen young women who were then engaged in tak- 
ing charge of the grounds of the Hotel Raymond in 
Pasadena. Some looked after the nursery, others 
tlie lawns and flower borders. Mr. Groenwegen, 
the superintendent of the grounds, arranged them 
in divisions with captains who were natural lead- 
ers. "They did things," said the superintendent, 
"just as well, if not better, than the men I had 
under me, following instructions faithfully." Cer- 
tainly they were attractive-looking as they worked, 
and their minds were on their duties. I met two 
or three of these young gardeners later, and it did 
not take a second glance to realize that work 
would prosper in such hands as these. 



210 



XII 



A REVIEW OF THE AMERICAN 
SEED CATALOGUE 



If there is a sprig of truth left growing in Bedfordshire, I 
entreat your Ladyship to spare me a cutting, for there is 
not a leaf to be had in town for love or money. 
— ^Horace Walpole to the Countess of Upper Ossory, 
London, November, 1779. 

LINES ON READING A GARDEN ANNUAL 

What do I care if snows drift deep 
And chill the north wind blows. 

When, in the sheltered room I keep, 
A glorious garden grows? 

Free flowering Ramblers climb and cling 

Immune from Bug and Blight, 
While from the floor Show Pansies spring. 

As big as saucers, quite. 

Larkspurs and Phlox their standards rear 

So thick with flowers no room 
Is left for leaves, and through the year 

Display Continuous Bloom. 

Exotic Ferns and Orchids Rare 

Grow rankly all about. 
Thriving the Better without Care, 

Indifferent to the drought. 

So why revile grim winter's rage 

When summer fails to show 
Such flowers as those the Seedman's page 

And boundless fancy know ? 

— Mildred Howells. 



XII 

A REVIEW OF THE AMERICAN 
SEED CATALOGUE* 

** TTERE come the annual catalogues," writes 
•*• -*■ the editor of that good little Boston weekly 
called "Horticulture." "The long fall labors of 
the seedsman have come to fruition, and here 
are his children, arriving by every post delivery. 
Each one, even the most unpretentious, represents 
effort to surpass in one direction or another, and 
in the voluminous total we don't believe there is 
one page deliberately inserted to deceive. If the 
public were only half as intelligent and attentive 
in their use of the seedsman's wares as the seeds- 
man is anxious to excel in the quality provided, 
we shouldn't hear so much about unsatisfactory 
results. The best remedy ever applied for *poor 
seed' is horticultural education." 

From its ethical standpoint the foregoing is my 
own platform with regard to the American seed 
lists. Who could enjoy that in which he could 

* Written in 1916: a few personal reflections. 
213 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

not believe ? As for me, it would be a bitter Jan- 
uary indeed which did not produce the too gay 
cover of Vaughan*s list, the sober livery of Dreer's, 
never better-looking than in 1916, the semi-deco- 
ration of Farquhar's. But, to take an original 
view of the question, my seed lists, as they lie in 
piles upon my table, how ugly they look! If I 
were not aware of the fact that competing seeds- 
men are not always the best of friends, I should 
suggest that a color-consultation be held in the 
summer of the men of each firm who make the 
issuing of the catalogue their peculiar business. 
Think what shelves of harmonious color we should 
then have as the year began; each firm to adopt a 
uniform binding, harmonious with his rival's, and 
not to depart from it with successive years ! 

For the business which concerns us here a com- 
parison, a critical examination of the seed lists of 
our country, division into rough groups seems to 
be convenient. First, catalogues of general im- 
portance, such as those of Dreer, Farquhar, 
Vaughan, the Palisades Nurseries, and so on. I 
will ask you to remember that the order in which 
I shall take these means nothing — they will be 
mentioned in a quite haphazard manner within 
their respective group arrangements. Let us take 

214 



AMERICAN SEED CATALOGUES 

the plunge with the respective names of Dreer and 
Farquhar. Moderation in expression character- 
izes these two lists; a plant is desirable, very de- 
sirable, of pleasing color. Few superlatives are 
here to be met; as a result, the reader's confidence 
is gained, and when an extra good thing comes in 
for high praise he promptly responds to the sug- 
gestion. Farquhar is entitled to all praise for his 
courage in introducing the new Chinese and Jap- 
anese shrubs and plants. The glorious Lilium 
myriophyllum, or, as it is now called, Lilium regale, 
was brought out by this firm a few years since; 
most of the new barberries, cotoneasters, and other 
shrubs lately introduced into commerce have been 
first described and offered upon these pages. 

In Dreer's catalogue for 1916, on the page oppo- 
site the excellent color print of Gladiolus Baron 
Hulot and Gladiolus Sulphur King, when these are 
called blue and gold, not only is the phrase pur- 
ple and gold more beautiful as to words but it is 
accurate and the other is not. A kind of faint- 
hearted retrieving of accuracy in color description 
is noted in the words concerning Baron Hulot, a 
"rich royal violet blue." All who have grown this 
small and charming flower know it for a rich violet 
or purple — the word blue cannot occur to any 

215 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

one who sees it even for the first time. Though I 
say, as I have often said before, that when the 
compiler of so restrained, complete, and serious a 
list as Dreer's speaks in color terms so misleading, 
amateur gardeners, as organizations and as indi- 
viduals, need to urge upon all such firms the 
adoption of one of the two standard charts, and 
that at once, before such painful things are re- 
peated. Taken as a whole, Dreer's is a fine cata- 
logue, certainly one of our best. Mr. W. C. 
Egan's cultural directions are always valuable. 
So are Mrs. Ely's, and the range in variety of 
seeds and plants is remarkable. To roses, dahlias, 
and hardy phloxes large spaces are allotted. Far 
too much space is given to illustrations. I think 
here of a lively correspondent of mine who, de- 
ploring the frequency of poor illustrations in one 
of our gardening journals, wrote: "I am too old 
to be amused by pictures, and I know how to 
grow tomatoes in a tomato-can." 

Since my eye first fell upon the list issued by the 
Palisades Nurseries, of Sparkill, N. Y., I have been 
less satisfied with the others upon my shelf. This 
list speaks to the intelligent gardener. It seems 
possessed of a certain accuracy, its color descrip- 
tions are among the best to be found, its explana- 

216 



AMERICAN SEED CATALOGUES 

tions of the meaning of botanical terms or names 
are as illuminating as they are unusual; in fact, it 
is one of the only two of our catalogues approach- 
ing the scientific. And for the constantly grow- 
ing company of advanced amateurs catalogues on 
the order of the great English lists, such as Barr's, 
which are books of reference too, must soon be 
forthcoming. For these gardeners no pictures 
are essential. They are abeady acquainted with 
form, color, and habit of their plant-subjects. 
They know from experience all they need to know 
concerning their soil and climate. New varieties 
are the thing, new varieties of known species, or, 
indeed, new species themselves. In the list of the 
Palisades Nurseries we find forty varieties of hardy 
asters and twenty-five of dianthus. 

Kiiight & Struck's list has many good features; 
a bit too much quotation, perhaps. It is a wordy 
list, and to the initiated may seem rather to overdo 
the matter of enthusiasm. Yet the fact that a 
color chart has practically been adopted by this 
firm, the first American instance of the kind, places 
this list far above all others in this one direction. 
Mrs. S. A. Brown's short paper on color at the 
beginning of the book is a document of real value. 
For myself, I could be as happy if T. E. Brown's 

217 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

well-worn "A Garden is a Lovesome Thing" had 
been omitted from these pages. 

Peter Henderson's book, with its quaintly gay- 
cover, is as welcome a visitor as any of its com- 
peers. Who does not smile as he looks with each 
new year upon the pleasant old gentleman in spec- 
tacles, ever wheeling his barrow full of vegetables ? 
The reliability of Henderson's seeds has been for 
years a household word. The frequency of exag- 
geration of its language is a lapse one forgives for 
old times' sake; but its pages bristle with such 
words as "gorgeous, magnificent, showj^ indis- 
pensable, superb," and the appeal of these terms 
to the seasoned gardener has become somewhat 
limited. 

Burpee's Annual for 1916 brings with it, to every 
one who knew of Mr. Burpee, a sense of almost per- 
sonal loss in his death in the autumn of 1915. Two 
fine young sons are now at the head of this great 
business, which is known first for its remarkable 
system of trials of seeds, and next for its many 
introductions of distinct varieties of flowers and 
vegetables, varieties which have proved their 
worth. The list has the look of another age, an 
older period of taste in America, the bright, inevi- 
table sweet pea upon its cover. The pictures of 

218 



AMERICAN SEED CATALOGUES 

half-page cabbages and whole-page lima beans, of 
half -page petunias and of whole-page antirrhinums 
may cause a smile upon the countenance of the 
unbeliever; but true it is that "Burpee's seeds 
grow," and the terse descriptions of flower or of 
vegetable are all that is needed to induce one to 
buy. 

Bobbink & Atkins issue a dignified, correct, and 
handsome list; this house also issues a separate 
catalogue of seeds for rock gardens. Thorburn 
has an excellent reputation as a seedsman in the 
East, at least; this firm is of great age, but its book 
has ever seemed to me to be really too conserva- 
tive, to show a certain rigidity of manner. Some 
day I shall expect to see upon its plain and attrac- 
tive cover Sir Walter's lines: 

"This rock shall fly 
From its firm base as soon as I." 

Vaughan's is a list of greatest interest to us in 
the Middle West. Each year it improves in type 
— alas, not in its outward dress, where impossible 
pansies of hideously large dimensions flaunt them- 
selves this season. But inwardly it is satisfying, 
and usually offers many delightful new flowers 
from all over the world. 

219 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Michell's (of Philadelphia) catalogue, barring a 
fearsome page of roses in color, is a very excellent 
and complete one; it illustrates good tools and 
baskets with a fulness hardly to be met with in 
other lists, and is in that respect rather a favorite 
of mine. 

To the old and fine firm of John Lewis Childs 
we owe Gladiolus Childsii — one of the finest types 
in cultivation. This house also introduced Rud- 
beckia Golden Glow — a flower now despised by 
the initiated, but which, I venture to say, has 
brought more pleasure into squalid city surround- 
ings than any heretofore known. Elliott, of 
Pittsburg, sends out lists which are always worth 
having — excellent selections of plants and shrubs 
are always on his pages. The cultural directions 
for delphiniums in Elliott's list are such as one 
cannot afford to miss. 

A colloquial of colloquials in seed-list lore is 
Henry Field, of Shenandoah, Iowa. There is no 
list so amusing as this, although in places it reminds 
us of Bees' list published at Liverpool, in which I 
always think I see an Irish hand ! Read in Henry 
Field, page 55, "Woman's Rights in the Garden," 
and have as hearty a laugh as you have had for 
long. Yet, underneath the humor of it, notice the 



AMERICAN SEED CATALOGUES 

truth about the old garden tools on the farm, and 
on that subject, not confined to Shenandoah, Iowa, 
of a woman's having to ask her husband for every 
cent she spends. There is a fundamental whole- 
someness about this catalogue which shows a sound 
man back of it. I commend it to those who may 
not realize the range of our seed publications, and 
what can be done by the Middle West in the way 
of breezy writing. 

Among the rather handsomer books of this year 
one might mention that of Weeber & Don, of New 
York. Here the cover bears a most attractive 
garden picture in color, bordered by a delicate de- 
sign in greenish gray; the inner leaves show many 
fine vegetables and flowers, with good descriptions 
evidently not overdrawn. Julius Roehrs, the great 
specialist in orchids, publishes a very adequate- 
looking list, with a selection of names of perennials 
suitable for the rock-garden, which will be specially 
welcomed by those who recall the lovely garden of 
this type shown by this company at the Grand 
Central Palace last year (1915). 

For Henry Dawson's list, that of the Eastern 
Nurseries, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, one can- 
not but feel the greatest admiration. This is a list 
without frills, in fact, almost without illustra- 

^21 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

tions; it is a learned list botanically, as befits one 
compiled by the son of Mr. Jackson Dawson, and 
made in the shadow of the Arnold Arboretum; and, 
because of its accuracy and range, it should rank 
very high with amateurs and professionals in this 
country. 

Let us now turn to a number of lists dealing with 
the great matter of trees and shrubs. In this 
group Moon, Hicks, and EUwanger and Barry 
stand out pre-eminent. Moon's book, always 
beautiful in dress, with a pretty play upon the 
name in its decoration, is the best of this type. 
Rather serious in language, it is not over-embel- 
lished by pictures. Hicks, of Long Island, well 
known for his fine specimen trees, sends us a list 
very choppy-looking within, in arrangement of 
illustrations and diagrams, but in reality crowded 
with planting suggestions based on principles. 
This is a valuable book. EUwanger and Barry 
used to be a name to conjure with; their present 
publication I find distinctly commonplace. Al- 
bert A. Manda issues a good pamphlet, called 
*'The Ornamentation of Grounds" — excellent 
reading from many points of view. Mr. Manda 
sends out no less than nine catalogues of his vari- 
ous wares. To return for an instant to Moon, 



AMERICAN SEED CATALOGUES 

of Morrisville, Pennsylvania, just mentioned; 
I am reminded here of a capital brochure pub- 
lished by them some years since, called "What 
to Plant and Where to Plant It." Volumes of 
free information in landscape-gardening are now 
pouring from the presses of the land; one almost 
wonders whether the profession of landscape archi- 
tecture may not be in danger — no, it is my belief 
that the more intelligence developed upon this 
great subject the more the general public will feel 
the need of expert professional advice and assis- 
tance. 

At Arlington Heights, near Chicago, Klehm's 
Nurseries publish an attractive list, remarkable for 
the number of varieties of given species offered, 
such as syringa, spirea, and philadelphus, for ex- 
ample, and for what was the astonishing compara- 
tive cheapness of its most excellent stock. This 
house should be given credit for the remarkable 
grafted elms it is now selling — in use, I under- 
stand, in the Boston Park system — very desirable 
for symmetry, immunity from pests, and gen- 
erally handsome appearance. 

The Andorra Nurseries, at Chestnut Hill, near 
Philadelphia, publish an attractive booklet, en- 
titled "Distinctive Trees and Plants," bearing on 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

its cover a decorative drawing of tlie flower of the 
tulip-tree. This, however, is not the principal list 
issued by this firm. The book of evergreen trees 
of Hill, of Dundee, Illinois, gaudy and cheap- 
looking, is nevertheless good of its kind. 

By far the finest of such catalogues, and one 
which has but now come to my notice, is that of 
the California Nursery Company, of Niles, Cali- 
fornia. This is, of course, of local interest first, 
but as an educational force it is of general interest 
too. Its pictures and text are equally delightful; 
it embraces many unfamiliar subjects, from the 
bougainvillea to the Smyrna fig, from the cypress 
to the prune, and it should serve as a kind of hor- 
ticultural Baedeker to the California traveller. 
Carl Purdy's list of native California plants sent 
out from Ukiah is another of these local lists of 
great interest. Theodore Payne, of Los Angeles, 
sends forth a very valuable booklet on "Wild 
Flowers of California." 

Two unusual catalogues, and those of a nature 
to be of special interest to the owner or maker of 
a formal garden, are of trained fruit-trees. It is 
true that we have yet to learn the ravishing beauty 
of fruit-trees for the spring garden, exactly as it is 
true that we (whose spring is really one vast 

224 



AMERICAN SEED CATALOGUES 

orchard in bloom) have yet to learn the general 
use of flowering apples, crabs, and cherries on our 
grounds and in our gardens. I commend especially 
to those who can afford them the idea of espaliers 
of the pear, the apple, the plum, as objects through 
which a rare quality of decorative beauty may be 
had. One of the lists is that of Otto Lochman, of 
Wallingford, Pennsylvania. Julius Roehrs is a 
dealer in su6h trees also, and these are mentioned 
as having a distinct bearing upon advanced horti- 
culture in this country. 

Under catalogues of thirty pages or over, de- 
voted to special plants, come those concerned with 
peonies, irises, and phloxes. The Peterson Nur- 
sery Company, of Chicago, issues a small list of 
irises of sixteen pages, which is absolutely the most 
beautiful sent out in the country, illustrating irises 
Monsignor, Purple King, Koenig Darius, and 
Lohengrin, which are really captivating in beauty. 
Shoup, of Dayton, Ohio, has a restricted but very 
handsome list of irises. Peonies begin to receive 
special attention, as shown by lists devoted to 
these delightful flowers. D. W. C. Ruff, of Bald 
Eagle, Lake Minnesota, issues a capital list, plain 
in form but full of peony knowledge, especially of 
all thq great French varieties. Good & Reese, of 

225 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Springfield, Ohio, are large dealers in this flower. 
But the most elaborate and complete book of the 
peony alone is, I think, that of the Mohican Peony 
Gardens, at Sinking Springs, Pennsylvania. This 
is truly a delightful handbook of the peony, with 
haK-tones as illustrations and careful descriptions 
of each variety listed. Another excellent list in 
black-and-white is the peony list T. C. Thurlow's 
Sons send out, a dignified and excellent catalogue; 
and I happen to be old-fashioned enough to think 
that some of this dignity arises from the fact that 
the firm does no business on Sunday, going even to 
the point of excluding visitors from their grounds 
on that day. There is something specially frank 
and honest about the Tliurlow list, as there is 
about those others of Lovett, of Little Silver, 
New Jersey, and of our friend, Frederick H. Hors- 
ford, of Charlotte, Vermont — and in thus speak- 
ing I would not intend any unpleasant inferences 
— no, not at all. 

To go back for an instant — every one knows 
F. H. Horsford, of Vermont; his modest and com- 
pact catalogue is a welcome visitor each January. 
Lovett, of Little Silver, New Jersey, sends out a 
very interesting list of fruits and flowers, and a 
group of good growers at Painesville, Ohio, also is- 



AMERICAN SEED CATALOGUES 

sue lists of about this size and character — Storrs 
& Harrison (whose book is, indeed, larger than the 
others), Ralph Huntington, and Martin Kohankie, 
an adventurer in plants. No less than three 
excellent small catalogues are sent out this year 
by as many women — Mrs. Strunsky, of Engle- 
wood. New Jersey; Mrs. Wolcott, of Jackson, 
Michigan, and Mrs. McFate, of Turtle Creek, 
Pennsylvania. In the charming list of Frank M. 
Thomas, West Chester, Pennsylvania, an amateur 
whose first catalogue is out this season, "A Classi- 
fication of Color Terms," I find a remarkable 
piece of writing.* 

Farr's, of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, is the larg- 
est of such lists as we are now considering, and this 
is a catalogue of great value. It is so evidently the 
result of much research reading and experiment, 
its list of varieties in irises and peonies are so 
exhaustive and seem to be classified to such per- 
fection, that I have come to turn to it as to a 
book of reference on these flowers. Its color- 
plates, too, are of uncommon excellence. 

Roses are next on our group of catalogues of 

* Mr. Thomas fell in France during the war. His business is carried 
on as a memorial to him under the name of the Twin Larches Niu-series by 
a relative and a friend. It is his due that this should be made known. 

— L. Y. K. 

227 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

special flowers. And who could do without that 
fine book of Walsh's, of Woods Hole, Massachu- 
setts, without the endless variety offered here, the 
accuracy in description, above all that excep- 
tionally good page of cultural instructions for 
the growing of the rose? Totty, of Madison, 
New Jersey, sends us a good-looking list of 
roses, the blot upon which this year is the name 
of a new ever-blooming polyanthus rose — Baby 
Doll! 

While it is true that the small but very hand- 
some list of the E. G. Hill Company, of Richmond, 
Indiana, is mainly for florists, I have become so 
enamoured of that glory of a red rose, Hoosier 
Beauty, that I must mention its originator's pub- 
lication here. Its cover is in black-and-white, a 
picture of Hoosier Beauty. This is said to be a 
good summer as well as greenhouse rose. I have 
never seen Chateau de Clos Vougeot, one of the 
parents of Hoosier Beauty, grown to perfection; 
but Hoosier Beauty reminds me of it in color and 
in velvetlike texture, and I cannot believe that 
any dark rose exists more sumptuous in hue, more 
elegant in form, than Hoosier Beauty. For the 
sake of this rose alone the list of Hill is worth 
while. On the other hand, here is shown a chrys- 

228 



AMERICAN SEED CATALOGUES 

anthemum called by the lugubriously suggestive 
name of Early Frost. Why thus gratuitously 
dampen our gardening spirits? The small cata- 
logue is in most excellent taste, and may be said 
to prove this point — that a good list in black 
and white is far more acceptable than a poor one 
in color. Conard & Jones's is as colorful a cata- 
logue as one may find; but the color of the great 
roses therein set forth seems to me to be particu- 
larly adequate, and their list is not only an all- 
embracing one but reliable. The wonderful new 
colors and types of cannas evolved by Antoine 
Wintzer, connected with this firm, are known the 
world over; alas, that the Department of Agricul- 
ture in Washington should yearly set forth, to this 
day, the abominable example of the round beds 
filled with cannas and edged with geraniums, as 
shown in this book. 

The dahlia is a flower which is not now languish- 
ing for want of attention. Otis P. Chapman, of 
Westerly, Rhode Island, issues a restricted list of 
exceedingly fine varieties; but the apogee of dahlia 
publications is certainly reached in the book of the 
Peacock Dahlia Farms, of Berlin, New Jersey, 
which bears upon its cover the modest legend, 
"The World's Best Dahlias." An excellent repre- 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

sentation of the fine flower of John Wanamaker 
appears upon the cover, a flower well worth pre- 
senting to the public as, to my own great satis- 
faction in it, I can testify. 

Another dahlia-grower calls himself the Dahlia 
king ! He is Mr. Alexander, of East Bridgewater, 
Massachusetts, who, however, nearly makes good 
his claim to the title on the strength of the great 
number of varieties shown in his fine catalogue. 
These are the larger lists concerned with the 
dahlia. Among the little ones, a tiny thing some 
three inches square stands out pre-eminent to me 
as one of the most perfect lists ever issued in 
America — it is that of Clifford White, of Grosse 
Isle, Michigan; fronted by a charming photograph 
of a hybrid cactus dahlia; beautifully printed and 
bound, it is a bit of a treasure in such things. 

David Herbert & Son, of Atco, New Jersey, issue 
a list of dahlias, very comprehensive and well 
printed, the cover a plain green of good tone and 
the collection of flowers offered apparently choice. 

When the small blue-bound list of Chester J. 
Hunt, of Montclair, appeared on the gardening 
horizon, it was as if a new star had risen. We 
look, and with reason, to the best English lists as 
our models of what the seed, bulb, or plant list 



AMERICAN SEED CATALOGUES 

should be; and this list of tulips and daffodils, in 
its completeness, its careful descriptive text, its 
excellent prefatory notes, and its color sense, is 
head and shoulders above most that we have — 
much more like an English list. Temperamen- 
tally it differs from an English list. It is buoyant 
in language — in fact, almost affectionate in appre- 
ciation of the beauties it describes. 

Lists of gladioli alone are now legion. They are 
always fluttering through our mails, Cowee's, of 
Berlin, New York, perhaps the earliest to have 
been devoted to this flower alone. It is now in 
very sumptuous dress and rainbowlike in color. 
A charming catalogue comes each year from the 
Tracys, of Wenham, Massachusetts, others from 
groups of men in Ohio, such as Bidwell and Fobes, 
the successors of that wonderful Frank Banning, 
to whom we owe gladiolus America and that 
other beauty Niagara. Clark W. Brown and Joe 
Coleman are two notable growers of gladioli in the 
same State, and send out attractive little books; 
John Lewis Childs, of course, offers a huge list. 
But it has remained for this season to introduce 
to me the remarkable list of the only woman 
grower of the gladiolus, commercial grower, that 
I know. This woman is Miss Mary Lois Haw- 

231 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

kins. Tbe cover belies the contents, which are of 
unusual value, especially since fourteen evidently 
very fine new varieties are here offered for the first 
time from a private collection. Here is the gladi- 
olus collector's opportunity. 

The well-printed booklet of A. E. Kunderd, of 
Goshen, Indiana, originator of the very striking 
Mrs. Frank Pendleton, Jr., and of the ruffled hy- 
brids of the gladiolus, is very interesting of its 
kind; to the hybridist particularly perhaps, be- 
cause to none but actual hybridizers of a flower 
can the extra frill in a daffodil or gladiolus edge be 
entirely exciting. The new hybrids of Gladudus 
primuUnus should be pleasant to see, partly be- 
cause of the charm of the species, in its wonderful 
colors and peculiar grace, and partly because, in 
the hands of so patient and successful a worker as 
Mr. Kunderd is known to be, there will surely be 
rare productions from them. The great drawback 
of this list is the presence of many peculiarly dull 
and even ugly names for new varieties of gladioli. 
Gold Throat, for example, may be descriptive — 
but Lily Blotch, Billy Red, and Splendorra ! 

To sum up : the great lack in the American seed 
list is the lack of correct color-description. Super- 
latives in descriptive writing of flowers we pass 

2S2 



AMERICAN SEED CATALOGUES 

good-humoredly by, for the very fact that there 
is not one of us, in the guild of gardening women 
at least, who does not make use of these our- 
selves! Impossible to write or speak of beauty 
in measured terms. We must remember that en- 
thusiasts write these catalogues. Yet no; on 
sober second thought, why should not our lists 
take on more restraint of language and less flam- 
buoyancy of cover and illustration ? So surely as 
our own plant and seed lists improve, so surely 
shall our gardens, the gardens of America, reflect 
this rise toward taste and knowledge in horticul- 
ture. Mr. E. H. Wilson declares that the lover of 
plants must and will have a larger voice in the 
variety that shall be gi'own in gardens. The solu- 
tion of the present problem will be found in both 
amateur and dealer becoming more and more pro- 
gressive. "That the nurserymen and seedsmen 
want the amateur's suggestion and criticism I feel 
certain. At present all is too commercial." Com- 
mercial to an extent it must be; co-operative as 
between dealers and amateurs it must be too, and 
more now than ever before, when the whole land 
is awake to the great occupation of gardening. 



£33 



XIII 



ON FORMING A GARDElNf 
CLUB 



I approve your printing.* Bury a few copies against 
this Island is rediscovered. Some American versed ta the 
old English language wiU translate it and revive the true 
taste in gardening; though he wiU smile at the diminutive 
scenes on the little Thames when he is planting a forest on 
the banks of the Oronoko. I love to skip into futurity 
and imagme what will be done on the giant scale of a new 
hemisphere. 
— Horace Walpole to Reverend Wm. Mason, 1775. 

*An essay on gardening. 



XIII 

ON FORMING A GARDEN 
CLUB 

A COMMENT on the garden movement in 
■^ ^ America has become nearly a platitude. The 
evidences of deep and growing interest are on every 
side. Often do I think of the satisfaction with 
which the pioneers in American gardening would, 
if they were living, look upon the fruits of their 
labors — Downing, Ames, Berckmans, Buist, EU- 
wanger, Landreth, Vick — those devoted horticul- 
turists whose work and whose writings in the early 
days were surely the American sources of the pres- 
ent almost feverish activities. The sentiment has 
suddenly crystallized, so suddenly and with such 
intensity that if it were not so delightful it would 
be amusing. The ubiquitous Garden Club is here. 
If all gardeners felt as I sometimes do — that, 
used in connection with the charming art and pur- 
suit upon which so many of us are bent in these 
latter days, the word "organize" has almost the 

237 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

effect of an affront — why should we discuss here 
or elsewhere the question of organizing in order 
to garden better ? That word organization seems 
to me to be enveloped in a dark cloud of other 
baneful words, such as Constitution, By-Laws, 
Dues, all these bearing on their face little or no re- 
lation to the occupation with which we must ally 
them here. But, granting them to be necessities, 
let us see how they may best serve us as we con- 
sider the matter set forth in our title. 

The organization of most garden clubs is, I 
imagine, brought about with real spontaneity and 
in very informal fashion. Two or three people, 
usually women — the reader will have noticed 
Miss Shelton's amusing explanatory reference to 
women's part in gardening in the preface to her 
"Beautiful Gardens in America" — two or three 
women, then, happen to meet in a brightly bloom- 
ing garden, oi on a terrace or piazza overlooking 
the same. The talk is all of the beauty before 
them. The wish is put into words by one or 
another of the group that a number of friends and 
acquaintances might gather at stated times for the 
purpose of discussing garden topics. Then follows 
a meeting of say twelve to twenty interested ones, 
the actual organizing, the election of officers, the 

^38 



ON FORMING A GARDEN CLUB 

appointing of a few committees, and lo! a new 
garden club is in existence. 

As to rules and general matters of organization, 
the less red tape the better, and this especially 
where the number is comparatively small. But in 
clubs numbering a membership of from twenty to 
thirty up, a fairly solid framework is essential to 
profitable existence. 

Here is a simple outline for a Constitution, to 
serve as a working basis only: 

Article 1. Name. 

Article 2. Object: The advancement of garden- 
ing. 

Article 3. Officers: The officers of this Club 
shall be a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary, 
and a Treasurer. 

Article 4. Executive Committee: The affairs of 
this Club shall be managed by an Executive Com- 
mittee consisting of the oflScers and two members, 
all to be elected annually. 

Article 5. Membership : The membership shall 
be limited to active and associate. Associate mem- 
bers pay more dues. Qualification for member- 
ship shall be an active interest in gardening. 

Article 6. Committee on Elections: The Execu- 
tive Committee shall be the Committee on Elec- 

239 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

tions. Any one may propose a candidate for ad- 
mission. Election consists of a unanimous vote 
by the Executive Committee. 

Article 7. Meetings: How many and where 
held. Hours for summer and winter should vary. 
Light refreshments shall or shall not be served at 
the discretion of the hostess. 

Article 8. Dues. 

Article 9. This would have to do with a person 
or committee whose business it shall be to arrange 
the exchanging of plants or cuttings between mem- 
bers. 

For the very informal and absolutely democratic 
garden club which we have in my special dwelling- 
place, although we are fifty-odd in number, a Presi- 
dent, two Vice-Presidents, and a Recording Secre- 
tary, who is also treasurer, are all that we feel to 
be essential in the way of officers. Our dues are 
but twenty-five cents a year — our meetings are 
held about once a month from February (cata- 
logues fresh upon us !) to October. No club could 
be simpler than this in its origin, aims, and meth- 
ods. There is but one qualification for member- 
ship — an interest in gardening. We have, be- 
sides dwellers in the town proper, a number of 
farmers' wives, one of whom is our greatest expert 

^0 



ON FORMING A GARDEN CLUB 

in flower-growing out of doors and whose own 
masses of glorious and rare flowers are a sight to 
see. A philosopher too she is, this woman to 
whom we all look up in gardening, a woman with 
a ready wit. 

"Folks say, * Everything grows for you,'" she 
told me one day, "and I tell 'em, 'You don't never 
see what I lose ! ' And I never lay it to the seed," 
she added reflectively, "I think it's generally the 
condition of the ground." 

The activities of the garden club in the small 
town may be many and varied, so a little practical 
advice as to meetings may not be out of place. 
The hour for meetings should vary in spring, sum- 
mer, and autumn. Late afternoon is almost in- 
variably the time which suggests itself for mid- 
summer gatherings; earlier in the day for spring 
and autumn conferences. Always have on the ta- 
ble of the presiding officer a few specimen flowers 
or foliage cuttings, correctly labelled. This is a 
stimulus which acts in many directions. Allow as 
little business as possible to come before regular 
meetings — bend all your energies there to discus- 
sion of the horticultural subject. Accumulate as 
rapidly as may be a few good books as the nucleus 
of a club library, never considering Bailey's great 

241 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Cyclopsedia of Horticulture as anything but a 
necessity, though you may be compelled to call it 
an eventual one. Lists of garden books can be 
had from any one who has really studied the sub- 
ject, but such lists should be more discriminating 
than those I have thus far chanced to see. Many 
worthless books are usually included in them. An 
examining member, herself a practical gardener, on 
the Library Committee of a garden club would be 
well. 

If a regular course should be desired by any 
garden club, the compiling of a programme should 
not be difficult. One such already exists, arranged 
by the editor of a New York periodical for women. 
Access to libraries should not make the getting up 
of such a programme over-trying, however. If, 
for instance, an outline of the history of the art of 
gardening should be desired for winter delibera- 
tions (and let me here assert my firm belief that 
nothing could be better for us all as individual 
gardeners), such an outline may be found in vol- 
umes II and III, 1889 and 1890, of "Garden and 
Forest," and from no less a pen than that of Mrs. 
Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 

Papers by members may seem a bugbear in a 
club's beginnings. Help this matter by providing 

S42 



ON FORMING A GARDEN CLUB 

material to be read by different ones, by accumu- 
lating such material and by consulting the files of 
the delightful and lamented paper, "Garden and 
Forest"; look back at your old copies of "House 
and Garden" for articles by experts. Cultural and 
horticultural advice ten or fifteen or forty years 
old, for the same climate, is in many respects as 
good to-day as when freshly written. Here is a 
list of suggested topics for papers, gathered from 
various sources, with one or two original sugges- 
tions whose value I admit is debatable: 

"Spring or Fall Planting, Which?" 

"The Twelve Best Seed Catalogues Now Cur- 
rent." 

"The Question of the Fence." 

"Other People's Gardens." 

"The Newer Varieties of Vegetables." 

"The New Chinese Shrubs." 

"A Garden of Irises." 

"A Green Garden." 

"Roses and Rose Culture." 

"Shrubs and Trees to Attract Birds." 

"A Joseph's Coat Garden." 

"The Artistic Use of So-called Bedding-out 
Plants." 

"Structural Green in the Garden." 

243 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 
'Is the Pergola an American Necessity?'* 



"Garden Design." 



"The Need of a Plan for the Small City or 
Suburban Lot." 

"The Spring Garden." 

An occasional lecture by one thoroughly versed 
in some special subject connected with the garden 
is a wonderful fillip to interest in meetings. In 
our club, where the dues are so small, we cannot 
engage speakers. But should an authority on gar- 
dening happen to be in the town, we seize upon 
him or her and demand a few crumbs of garden 
wisdom as our right. But — not too many lec- 
tures, or individual participation lags. Once or 
twice a season experience meetings are well. Call 
the roll, asking each member beforehand to use 
three minutes in describing her greatest success or 
most depressing failure during the past season. 
The severest garden club atmosphere under this 
treatment warms and glows. 

Too many lectures, I may repeat, hurt rather 
than help. Too much intensive work is apt to 
grow dull. To strike the delicate balance is the 
needed thing. Above all, to get many members 
actively to work — this is the secret of success in 
any organization of any kind. 



ON FORMING A GARDEN CLUB 

The very life-blood of any meeting is free and 
intelligent discussion, and this is always present in 
the garden club of our town. Always the hidden 
gifts of knowledge and of expression which come 
to light prove a delightful thing. Small concerted 
movements on the part of the club are common. 
For example, the receiving vault in our cemetery 
needed a hanging of green; the garden club bought 
a dozen good creepers of unusual character — 
Evonymus radicans (var. vegeta), and Ampelopsis 
Lowiif to be explicit, and thus filled this small pub- 
lic want. A bride in a new house with ungarnished 
grounds receives a visit from a large committee of 
the club, each of whom brings her quota of shrub 
and plant from her own store. Seeds and plants 
are constantly exchanged between members. But 
the true beauty of this club is its democracy. 
Every woman is welcome to the house in which the 
meeting chances to be held. I quite realize that 
this is possible or practicable only in the smaller 
community; but one cannot but dream of the time 
when it will be common in the large. 

In some garden clubs an extra officer is elected 
to manage the exchanging of seeds and plants be- 
tween members. This is sometimes effected by 
the handing in of cards with names of things 

M5 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

wanted and of cards with names of things super- 
fluous. One person can thus readily rectify mat- 
ters to the satisfaction of all. I shall never forget 
the pretty sight at the meeting of a certain ador- 
able garden club, where heaps of pink-wrapped 
bundles of the roots of hardy pale-yellow chrysan- 
themums were free for all to take home as many 
as they liked ! For most of us things multiply so 
quickly. We should remember that Achillea ptar- 
mica. The Pearl, for instance, is actually listed in 
many catalogues at fifteen cents, and that there 
are many aspiring if less well-posted gardeners to 
whom the greedy thing is worth that sum ! 

In the garden club of Alma we have sixteen 
groups of women, each group charged with the 
business of growing the best flowers from seed. 
The groups at present are as follows: sweet-william, 
zinnia, gladiolus, iris, columbine, poppy, Shasta 
daisy, geranium, dahlia, larkspur, stock, and others 
whose names may readily occur to the reader. 
These groups meet at their own convenience, buy 
their seeds, plant and take care^of the trial bed 
allotted to them. 

A year ago a fine formal garden, whose owner 
was away, was lent us by this absent friend to use 
by our groups as a trial garden. The various beds 

246 




ARTEMISIA LACTIFLORA WITH PINK POPPY 



ON FORMING A GARDEN CLUB 

of the garden were ideal bits of ground for this 
practice, and the place itself by August was a pic- 
ture of beauty. We tried not to use it as a mere 
target to throw flowers at, but to keep the unities 
a little in mind. On a day in May the large bor- 
rowed garden was an interesting sight, with groups 
of people actively engaged in cultivating, planting, 
and sowing every bed. And in September a yet 
more interesting picture was there, for the flowers 
had done marvellously well, and squares of zinnia, 
dahlia, petunia, aster, stock, verbena, and gladio- 
lus in a setting of well-kept turf made a pretty 
spectacle. It would be well if such generosity 
could be oftener shown in the lending of the un- 
used garden. However, if a garden is not at hand, 
a vacant lot might be secured. Such trial grounds 
are invaluable, both for the education and pleasure 
which they give to members of a garden club, and 
as objects of public interest, comment, and ex- 
ample. 

An annual gladiolus show on very simple lines 
is arranged for August. This, by the way, I be- 
lieve to be the simplest, most effective small flower 
show possible, and therefore perhaps the best with 
which to start. Given a broad, non-windy piazza, 
a few boards and barrels, some dark-green cam- 

247 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

brie, five or six dozens of glass fruit-jars, and the 
thing is done. The gilded ribbons for prizes can 
readily be made at home. And when one or two 
speakers are added, too, at the time of the flowery- 
array, to hold forth briefly on the matter of classi- 
fication, naming, and the best uses of the flower of 
the day, the little show is sure to become a yearly 
event to many people. 

We have found it best to begin with the gladiolus 
in entering upon a course of flower shows, but the 
tulip would be a comparatively simple flower to 
use in this way, as would the sweet pea. Daffo- 
dils would be somewhat more difficult, owing to 
their rather involved classification. The dahlia, 
however, affords a magnificent subject for garden- 
club exhibiting. I would suggest for the very 
glory of it, though I do not know whether or not 
this has ever been done, a show composed exclu- 
sively of rambler roses and delphiniums. Gar- 
lands, festoons of delicious little pink roses, rang- 
ing from those faintly tinged with color to such 
rich hues as are in Excelsa, arranged so that they 
seem to start from pots; of such dwarf ramblers 
as Ellen Poulson, and at intervals in the back- 
ground sheaves of blue to bluest delphiniums ! 

Shows of annuals only should be interesting and 

248 



ON FORMING A GARDEN CLUB 

effective, and I hope the time may come when we 
shall have little shows of the finer geraniums and 
dwarf cannas, that these beautiful and ever-bloom- 
ing flowers may again find place in our good gar- 
dening schemes. An autumn show comprising 
both flowers and vegetables is often tried and found 
successful. I shall never forget the beauty and 
originality of effect of a rich basket at a recent gar- 
den club show of this type. The occupants of this 
basket were ears of a purplish-black corn, delicate 
green heads of lettuce, egg-plant, and the purple- 
blue flower of an artichoke. One could not fancy 
a more decorative color effect than this. A rose 
show, too, suggests itself as a matter of course. 
And how amusing it would be to try the experi- 
ment of a show to be composed entirely of blue 
flowers — the varying ideas of that hue would be 
everywhere in evidence, and what opportunities 
for enlightening comparisons ! 

That the garden club shall keep abreast o{ the 
general march of gardening knowledge, a member- 
ship on the part of some officer or member is ad- 
visable in all the societies in this country which 
make a study of special plants, such as the Ameri- 
can Peony Society, the American Rose Society, 
and so on. Also memberships in large horticul- 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

tural organizations are highly desirable, as in this 
way the help of the many is brought to the few. 

Now, as to the social side of the small garden 
club. In no other department of social life can 
such independence of spirit be shown as here. 
This is due to the fact that members and their 
guests are absorbed by the fascination of study 
and discussion of gardening in one or another of 
its forms; it matters not to them what they shall 
eat, what they shall drink — I had almost added, 
wherewithal they shall be clothed. For clubs in a 
smaller community the question of the collation is 
often and naturally, however, a matter for con- 
cern. Let the articles limit this as they do in the 
suggested constitution; but, more than this, let 
the individual hostess occasionally omit the plea- 
sant cup of tea. Do not be bound by a trifling 
custom which fades into the background where so 
important a matter as garden talk is and should 
be uppermost. 

The time is here when any beginning garden 
club can map out its plans with no difficulty and 
may start on its career with high hopes of success. 
It is common knowledge that the very character 
of the gardening interest makes people more ready 
to help than in almost any other form of organized 

250 



ON FORMING A GARDEN CLUB 

work. There is something in this charming prac- 
tice of working in and on flowers which gives us a 
rare friendship with each other. It must be that 
the very elements of wind, rain, sun, so freely sent 
us, and without which we could do nothing, have 
their leavening influence upon the spirit, and make 
one generous and self -forgetting in gardening. 

Don'ts for the Benefit of Chairmen of 
Exhibition Committees* 

by mrs. william h. gary 
Don't fail to appoint the chairman of your 
classification committee, and ask her to appoint 
her committee at least six months before the show. 
She and they will accept then when they may not 
later. 

Don't fail to be at each meeting of the classifi- 
cation committee and help them get out their 
preliminary schedule six months ahead of show. 
Your presence helps both chairmen. 

Don't fail to have your final schedules printed 
and in your hand one month before the show; also 
see that entry blanks are mailed to each member 
in same envelope with schedule. 

* Reprinted from the Year Book of the Garden Club of New Canaan, 
Conn., by kind permission of Mrs. Gary and of the Club. These rules are 
for a more highly organized club than that just described. 

251 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Don't give out your schedules at a meeting, or 
members may protest they have never received 
one. 

Don't fail to order everything needed for pub- 
licity work, information for the papers, invitation 
cards, colored tags, and red and blue prize ribbons 
or prize cards, fully a month before show. 

Don't think seeing one proof is enough. See 
the last proof the day the schedule is printed. 

Don't forget to count your vases or containers, 
and be sure you have enough. The number needed 
differs each year according to your schedule. 

Don't fail to see that the green covering for the 
exhibition tables is in good condition, at least 
three weeks before the show. The moisture and 
rats may have destroyed it, and it may take some 
time to procure more of the same color. 

Don't store your papier-mache vases inside each 
other when wet. Next year's chairman will need 
hammers to loosen them. 

Don't spend too much time or money decorating 
the hall. The flowers, when put in place, are dec- 
oration enough. 

Don't attempt an outdoor show. Wind and 
rain are sure to ruin it. 

Don't forget to provide the following articles 

252 



ON FORMING A GARDEN CLUB 

for the morning before the show — two water- 
pitchers, tacks, hammers, string, wooden plates, 
and sphagnum moss, if needed for exhibition trays. 
On the morning of the exhibition have fountain 
pens, extra name-cards and envelopes, and sched- 
ules for each member of all committees and ex- 
hibitors. 

Don't fail to see that badges for all committees 
are on hand, and ask all members to wear them. 

Don't fail to wear old clothes and an apron with 
pockets. 

Don't be too busy to take the judges aside a 
few minutes before they judge, and go carefully 
over the rules in your schedule. No two sets of 
judges have the same rules for judging, and they 
like to have yours explained. Have a small com- 
mittee of women go around with judges to open 
name cards of winners, and, wherever you can, be 
lenient about throwing out exhibits. Remember 
it may be the fault of your own committee that the 
exhibits are not counted or placed correctly. 

Don't open the windows on the windward side 
of the hall. Wind and direct sun ruin exhibits. 

Don't fail to go back to the hall in the after- 
noon, and have some of your committee present. 
There will be numerous questions to be answered, 

253 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

and your reception committee, who give out 
schedules to visitors, may not be able to answer 
technical flower questions. 

Don't forget to provide late luncheons at the 
hotel for the professional judges, as they come at 
twelve and do not finish until after two. Find 
out when inviting the women from other clubs, 
who judge the artistic classes, whether they will 
lunch before leaving home or on arrival, and make 
your arrangements accordingly. 

Don't try to arrange your own flowers for ex- 
hibit the morning of the show. Have everything 
ready the night before. 

Don't forget to have a clearing-up committee, 
and have men engaged to put away stands, tables, 
and replace chairs. Provide money for feeing, 
and pay as many bills in cash as possible. 

Don't fail, where the judges are professional, to 
ask the names and addresses of their employers, 
that you may write a note of acknowledgment to 
the employers, who have allowed their men to be 
absent a whole day. 

Duties of Classification Committee and 
Their Chairman 

The chairman of the classification committee is 
appointed by the chairman of the exhibition com- 

254 



ON FORMING A GARDEN CLUB 

mittee or by the president of the club. She pre- 
pares a preHminary schedule of all the classes for 
the coming show, and reads it to the club several 
months before the show, asking for suggestions, 
and also giving the club a chance to plant the 
special flowers for the show designated in schedule. 
She gives in this schedule rules for judging, with 
the percentage allowed for color, quality, form, 
and condition. Rules for exhibiting are given, 
also, and it is stated that breaking these rules 
will disqualify. 

On the day of the show the class committee 
pass upon all entries, to be sure they are entered 
according to schedule, and, where possible, count 
number entered in each exhibit. 

Duties of Exhibition Committee and Their 
Chairman 

The chairman of the exhibition committee is 
appointed by the president of the Garden Club. 
She appoints her own committee of about twenty, 
and divides their work into three parts: 

First Division: Takes entire charge of Exhibi- 
tion Hall. No one else enters. They apportion 
the space needed for each class on the exhibition 
tables by consulting the entry cards, as every 
member has signified the classes she is to enter. 

^55 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

This division places large printed cards, with the 
class name in each space. They receive and place 
in its proper space each entry after the classifica- 
tion committee has passed it. 

Second Division: Receives, in a part of the 
building convenient to outdoor entrance and run- 
ning water, all flower exhibits. They see that 
tags and class nunibers are properly attached, and 
assist exhibitor to select and count. They have a 
schedule always before them which they can ex- 
plain. They pass the entries, in theii' vases, on to 
classification committee. 

Third Division : Does the same with vegetables 
that the second division has with flowers. The 
whole exhibition committee is the clearing-up com- 
mittee, after the show, and returns property. 

Note. — In some cases, where gardeners wish to 
make elaborate arrangements of their flowers or 
vegetables, in collection, they do so on tables pro- 
vided for the purpose in the Exhibition Hall, by 
special permission of the chairman. 



256 



XIV 



VOCATIONS FOR WOMEN IN 
AGRICULTURE 



I have a gardener that has lived with me above five 
and twenty years; he is incredibly ignorant and a mule. 
... I have offered him fifteen pounds to leave me, and 
when he pleads that he is old and that nobody else will 
take him, I plead that I am old too, and that it is rather 
hard that I am not to have a few flowers, or a little fruit 
as long as I live. 

— ^Horace Walpole to the Earl of Harcourt, Straw- 
berry HUl, Oct. 18, 1777. 



XIV 

VOCATIONS FOR WOMEN IN 
AGRICULTURE* 

I BRING to-day to this subject a mind glowing 
with what Hes around us in Michigan in the 
autumn of 1920. Our county is one where diver- 
sified farming is the rule. This year's crops have 
rarely been equalled. While the hay crop was 
light and the wheat promised well but was injured 
by rust, the rye crop was good, the barley very 
fine, also the late beans. The sugar-beets are the 
best in the twenty-one years of beet-growing in 
Michigan, and never were more magnificent fields 
of corn. Saved by warm weather and delayed 
September frosts, not before have we seen such 
tall and even stalks by millions; never were the 
ears larger or better filled than in the harvest of 
1920. 

When one lives, as I do, on the edge of the 
farms, one thinks of them often and of their vari- 
ous aspects. To-day, in spite of the many troub- 

*A paper read October, 1920, at Massachusetts Agricultural College, 
on the occasion of the opening of the dormitory for women students of 
agriculture. 

259 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

les encountered by the farmer, Aristotle's dictum 
comes to one with a special meaning: "The culti- 
vators of the soil are the least inclined to sedition 
and to violent courses." It is an occupation to 
steady, to quiet, as well as to provide. It is an 
occupation which, in many of its forms, is growing 
attractive to women, and in all but its heaviest 
physical aspects farming is a calling suited to 
women as well as to men. 

The great forward impetus to the movement of 
women workers on the land came, of course, from 
the work of the two armies of women land- workers 
during the war in Great Britain and America. 
And the first step taken in this country to organ- 
ize the Women's Land Army was taken by the 
Woman's National Farm and Garden Association. 
The association had been slowly building up a 
foundation for work of this kind. In December, 
1913, before war was in the minds of Americans, a 
group of twelve women met in Philadelphia, and 
decided that the banding together of women whose 
interests lay in out-of-door work might serve both 
as a stimulus to others to go out upon the land 
and as a centre for mutual help through exchange 
of knowledge in making known our agricultural 
institutions, and in bringing together — please 

260 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

remember that this was nearly seven years ago — 
consumer and producer. Our motto was, and is, 
''Thrift and Beauty." The work of the associa- 
tion has met with a success undreamed of by its 
founders. While the membership needs enlarge- 
ment, for expenses are constantly increasing, the 
value of the association is daily recognized. It is 
unique in its field. Its national office, Stevens 
Building, 16 North Wabash Avenue, Chicago, is a 
centre of information for members and others, an 
agency for employers and employed, and as busy 
a meeting-place as there is in the country. I 
speak of the Woman's National Farm and Garden 
Association in detail, for the reason that it is the 
only organization in this country devoted to offer- 
ing help to women in agriculture and horticulture. 
It is the organization which constantly and con- 
sistently preaches the value of work on the land 
for women, from both the economic and the per- 
sonal standpoint; it is the organization which 
would bring the pale stenographer, the teacher 
who cannot and who should not teach, or the fine 
teacher who has taught too long, into the fields 
and gardens of this great land of farms and gar- 
dens. I mention now a few names of members, 
to show the varieties of their occupations. 

261 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Looking at our directory of members, and tak- 
ing some names at random: Mrs. T. O. Atkinson, 
of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, raises nut-trees from 
seed; Mrs. Henry Burden, Cazenovia, New York, 
organized her own farm, exhibited hens, and pub- 
lished articles in "The Rural New Yorker"; Miss 
Josephine Clarke, of Southridge, Massachusetts, 
has three acres of vegetables and two thousand 
gladiolus bulbs; Miss Jean Cross, Yonkers, New 
York, gives illustrated talks on school gardens, 
back-yard and window gardens; Mrs. Edward 
Bewley Davis, Newtown, Pennsylvania, breeder 
of Ayrshire cattle, draft horses, old English sheep- 
dogs, and Rhode Island red poultry; Mrs. Myrtle 
Shepherd Francis, Ventura, California, specialist 
in petunia seed — her seed is known all over the 
world; Mrs. Gillette, of Fort Solange, Long Island, 
wild turkeys and hens; Mrs. Gill, Medford, Massa- 
chusetts, peonies, hollyhock hybrids, and perpetual 
roses; Mrs. Wm. Roy Smith, general farming, es- 
pecially potatoes, apple growing, and small fruits, 
teacher of economics in Bryn Mawr College; Miss 
Letitia Wright, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ex- 
pert in bees, has an apiary; Mrs. Arthur Scrib- 
ner. New York and Mount Kisco, also a bee ex- 
pert; Mrs. Jennie M. Conrad, Conrad, Indiana, 

262 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

stock breeding, spotted Poland China hogs; Mrs. 
Charles H. Hunger, Duluth, Minnesota, farming; 
Mrs. D. W. C. Ruff, St. Paul, Minnesota, phlox, 
gladioli, peonies, dahlias, has published. We have 
a member in New York State who raises willows 
for baskets; we have goat-farmers, chicken-raisers, 
sheep and cattle experts; we have women truck- 
gardeners, whose work has been conspicuous, and 
many women landscape-gardeners and fine flower- 
gardeners are among our members. 

Perhaps, however, I should bring to a close my 
panegyric on the Woman's National Farm and 
Garden Association, and proceed to discuss in de- 
tail the effectiveness of its relations to vocations 
for women in agriculture. Since one of our activi- 
ties in the association is the providing of a bureau 
of information for women's agricultural interests, 
what more natural than for the society's president 
to turn thither for help when considering this sub- 
ject? Miss Webb, the executive secretary, has 
given me the following facts, which are here re- 
peated as received. 

"My experience," writes Miss Webb, "shows 
that opportunities for women in agriculture have 
increased in recent years at least as rapidly as the 
supply of well-trained women. The number of 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

women who are taking up agriculture as a voca- 
tion is increasing more rapidly than it would have 
if women had not gone into this work for patriotic 
motives during the war. Now many of these 
women are not content to work indoors, and are 
fitting themselves by training and practical experi- 
ence to take up some form of agriculture as a voca- 
tion. These women are successful as assistants, 
but have not had sufficient experience to fit them 
for the better positions. 

"In spite of the greatly increased number of 
women workers, there are not enough women to 
fill the demands for assistants, and there is still a 
lack of well-trained women for the more responsi- 
ble positions. Farm units in fruit sections are still 
made up largely of inexperienced workers; farms 
and estates sometimes will take girls with little or 
no experience if it is a choice between these and 
no help at all, but the general call is for women 
with suitable qualifications, as follows: 

"1. Physical strength to work eight hours a day 
without becoming exhausted. This means, as a rule, 
that the girl must have done this one or two 
seasons, and has her muscles in good condition. 

"2. Experience in ordinary farm or garden opera- 
tions: planting, hoeing, weeding — in some cases 

264. 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

more is required, as handling a team, mowing with 
hand-scythe, potting plants, pruning, caring for 
shrubs and lawn, etc. Farmers and superinten- 
dents are willing to show the workers to a certain 
extent, but not the simplest kinds of work. 

"3. Good character: The girl must be of good 
character, reliable, and able to take care of herself, 
as she goes out as an individual worker, not under 
a camp supervisor, as was the case in the Woman's 
Land Army camps. If she fails in this respect she 
gives a bad name to all other women workers, and 
the good workers suffer. 

"4. Special qualifications vary with the position. 
The list of positions which women are now filling 
will show some of the special qualifications neces- 
sary. 

"Whether the demand for women workers will 
continue or increase depends entirely on the satis- 
faction that the present workers give. In sections 
where women have done well, e. g., Bedford, New 
York, the call for workers is always greater the 
next year." 

Returning for a moment to the association: In 
war work, in marketing, in special information, 
this association did, and is doing, very active and 
effective work. Its scholarships are distributed 

^65 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

over nine States. And let me add that no general 
mention of the Farm and Garden Association is 
now made in any place, at any time, without refer- 
ence to the amazingly fine work of the New Eng- 
land branch, under the able leadership of its offi- 
cers and their committees, and of its devoted mem- 
bers. This work of the New England branch is well 
known to the Massachusetts Agricultural College 
and its friends; not only by what the branch has 
been able to do for the college, but by the great 
help given by the college to the branch. Even- 
tually we hope that all our branches may be in as 
close and fruitful co-operation with their nearest 
agricultural institutions as is the New England 
branch with this great school of their region. 

The records of the association office show nearly 
twenty fairly distinct farming or gardening chan- 
nels through which women's activities are now 
flowing. These are given here with an occasional 
name of a member as a concrete instance of one 
now engaged in the various kinds of work. 

In nursery work, either as owners or managers, 
women are doing extremely well — Mrs. Ruth Day, 
of Spokane, Washington, is a shining instance of 
this. Mrs. Day, though only twenty-four years of 
age, is not only the manager of Overman's Nursery 

£66 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

at Spokane, but a few months ago was elected 
president of the Pacific Nurseryman's Association. 
Mrs. Cleveland, of Eatontown, New Jersey, deals 
in fine irises; Miss Frances Mcllvane has the 
Twin Larches Nurseries at West Chester, Pennsyl- 
vania. Many women are raising flowers on a 
small scale for sale. Others have truck-gardens, 
and besides selling vegetables and small fruits do 
canning and jelly-making, which add considerably 
to their incomes. 

In farm management Miss M. holds a position 
at the Connecticut Industrial Schools for Girls, 

Middletown, Connecticut, and Miss M M. is 

managing the Robert Bacon Farm, Westbury, 
Long Island. Many farm or estate owners are 
managing their own places. Landscape architec- 
ture, or the vocation of consulting gardener, is so 
commonly practised to-day by women as hardly 
to need mention. My own opinion with regard to 
this profession is that there are openings now, 
especially in the Middle and Far West, for women 
garden designers and planters of the very little 
garden, the best use of the town or city lot. It 
is the miniature garden which must always be the 
possession of the many, and the intelligent use 
of a small bit of ground is a matter with which 

867 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

women are especially qualified to deal. Miss 
Katherine Jones, instructor in landscape-gardening 
at the University of California, shares my opinion 
in this. "I feel," writes she, "that the small 
home garden is a problem for the women landscape- 
gardeners, as the men seem to care little to handle 
problems that bring in such small returns." The 
producing of maple sugar is the chosen province of 
work of Miss Alice Brown, of Shelburne, Massa- 
chusetts. In Vermont Mrs. Walter Dodd and Mrs. 
Russell Tyson also market this delicious article. 
Trained women are teaching gardening and allied 
subjects, such as botany and nature-study; many 
calls come to the office for teachers of gardening in 
schools in the South. There are many opportuni- 
ties for the teacher of school gardening. Supervi- 
sors of garden units and canning are in demand. 
Miss L. is now in charge of canning and a camp 
of garden girls at a hotel at Lake Placid, New 
York. 

Occasional offers come of positions combining 
secretarial work or bookkeeping with out-of-door 
work. These are on private places. There are 
now and then calls for a garden-director in a mill 
district. Miss McC, a graduate of the Pennsyl- 
vania School of Horticulture for Women at Ambler, 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

holds such a place with certain cotton mills at 
Lexington, North Carolina. Many women are 
in charge of small places, including greenhouses, 
lawns, flower and vegetable gardens, or they di- 
rect some part of the work. A very able woman 
has lately undertaken the remaking and care of 
a fine rock garden on Long Island; another is at 
Onteora Park, Tannersville, New York, in charge 
of the greenhouse and two acres of vegetables 
and flowers. 

As farm-manager or assistant in charge of poul- 
try, dairy, greenhouse in industrial schools, or in 
connection with schools that have only a vege- 
table-garden, women are in constant demand. It 
is very difficult to supply such places. Besides 
the necessity of training, special qualifications of 
age, experience, and temperament come into ques- 
tion. Of poultry-farming, beekeeping, and dairy 
work it is hardly necessary to speak, so many 
women are successfully engaged in these occupa- 
tions. 

The seasonal work of berry-picking, picking and 
packing of apples, work in orange groves, and so 
on, always results in a demand for women workers 
now, and I would say that the status of the type 
of seasonal woman worker is decidedly raised since 

269 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

the war. I only mention this unskilled and sea- 
sonal occupation because in the spring it is in con- 
stant demand in the main and branch offices of 
the Farm and Garden Association. A great new 
field for woman's work opens now in greenhouse 
work on estates and small private places, and in 
commercial establishments as well. 

Walking in the gardens of a fine estate on the 
north shore of Massachusetts this summer, I talked 
with the superintendent concerning the work of 
the nine to twelve young women he found em- 
ployed, on his undertaking of the work this year. 
*'Tell me what you think of them." "They are 
really first-rate," said he. "When I first came 
here they were not in the habit of steady work. 
If one wanted to go off for a day, she went. But 
now that they have been shown the necessity for 
continuous work I couldn't ask for better results, 
and especially in the greenhouse. We must have 
propagated something like five hundred thousand 
plants from seed this year. The girls did the work 
and did it amazingly well." 

Animal husbandry is a vocation in agriculture 
for women less often entered . upon than these 
others — but let me mention here a sentence or 
two from a letter of one of our members. Miss S., 

270 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

to whom was awarded a scholarship of the Farm 
and Garden Association. Here is a young enthu- 
siast in this department of agriculture writing 
from the farm in New York State where she has 
been at work. "I do hope you will be successful 
in raising the necessary fimds, I am so anxious to 
go to school; with the practical experience I have 
had with sheep, cattle, horses, and pigs, a short 
course will be a great benefit. Aside from my per- 
sonal tastes, I think the time is upon us now when 
women are needed who have both the theoretical 
and practical training in the various branches of 
animal husbandry. It is just as important that 
there be meat, and wool, and hides as it is to have 
vegetables and fruit." Two of our members have 
acted as caretakers of country places during the 
winter; and there is a call now for next winter 
where the position may prove permanent, result- 
ing in the building up of a commercial nursery 
plant and large vegetable-garden. 

Last of all, rural-school teachers are needed who 
can teach agriculture, living in a community which 
allows them a small place from which some income 
can be derived, or who can take charge of agricul- 
tural work in all schools in a town or county. 
Very few women are doing this. A few weeks ago 

271 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

Mr. C. D. Jarvis, of the Department of Agricul- 
ture, specialist in rural education, wrote us: 
"Probably there never was a time when there was 
a greater demand for rural teachers. Although 
our opinions have changed considerably concern- 
ing the methods of teaching in rural schools, and 
although we realize that teachers with special 
qualifications are needed for rural-school work, we 
are employing in this country thousands of teach- 
ers who have nothing more than a four-year high- 
school course, and no professional training what- 
ever. There is no question, therefore, about the 
opportunities for specially trained women for 
rural-school work. The remuneration for this 
work, however, probably will never equal the 
remuneration obtained from other employments 
requiring the same qualifications. Those who 
enter the field, therefore, must expect to make 
sacrifices. Undoubtedly specially trained women 
who have the ability to teach according to our 
modern methods, and who make a success of the 
work, will always be better remunerated than the 
ordinary rural teachers." 

A paper on such a subject as this is of necessity 
more of a report than an expression of opinion; 
and, since in reports of this nature letters are usu- 

272 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

ally embodied, I am happy to include here several 
letters of uncommon point and value — letters re- 
ceived within a month from women who are en- 
gaged now in farming or allied occupations. Miss 
McC, mentioned above, after speaking of the 
necessity for capital for a woman owning her qwn 
farm, writes: 

"Among the women in our profession whom I 
have met, those who own their own farms and raise 
fruits and small truck, or who have a greenhouse, 
seem to be most successful. Perhaps because this 
is my special line, I have paid more attention to 
the successful women in it. As to the avenues 
open to women, there is no limit, especially if she 
has capital for her own farm. She may make a 
success in any line of the big vital profession of 
agriculture she may especially be interested in. 
A woman's one handicap in the field of agriculture 
may be when she is a wage-earner in it. 

"I am relating a personal experience in Ten- 
nessee. I wrote to the man in charge of the 
Smith-Lever work in that State, applying for a 
position and stating my training and experience. 
His reply was that my training was all that was 
required, and he felt from my recommendations 
that I was as competent as any man with like ex- 

273 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

perience and training, but, because I was a woman, 
he could not offer the position to me. The home 
and school garden work seems to open the gi'eat- 
est avenue of success for the professional women 
in agriculture. Financially I find this pays better 
and gives a broader scope to develop one's own 
ideas and plans than holding a position on a pri- 
vate estate in a greenhouse or on a dairy farm." 

Dean Watts, of Pennsylvania State College, be- 
lieves that horticulture offers special inducement 
to women, both for pleasure and profit. As to 
fruit-growing, the following paragraphs, at once 
practical and delightful, from Mrs. S., vice-presi- 
dent of the Pennsylvania Rural Progress Associa- 
tion, are good to have: 

"There is no interest more delightful than agri- 
culture for women,'* writes Mrs. S. "It seems to 
me that it is quite ideal, and certainly very fine 
for the health. During these past war years I 
have had charge of two fruit-farms and one dairy- 
farm, and with excellent people employed by us 
on all these farms everything has gone well. The 
fruit business appeals to me much more than 
dairying or general farming. It is very scientific 
and quite concrete. The returns from it are very 
large at times. This year, with the break-down of 

274 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

the railroads and their failure to haul away the 
large crops going in to Philadelphia, the anxieties 
have been more than we care for. In other years 
there has been no trouble to get rid of everything 
we grew. Our specialties are peaches and apples. 
We have now three fruit-farms and one dairy- 
farm. The latter is not profitable, merely hold- 
ing its own. It is very important for people to 
study carefully the locality where they intend to 
farm. It is just as easy to be near the markets 
as far from them, and very discouraging to try 
to market your products in some places. New 
Jersey, and especially Camden and Burlington 
Counties, is the best location I know of for fruit 
and truck. Long Island may be good, too, though 
I know but little about it. Women should beware 
of neighborhoods where there is no specialty 
grown, as the marketing game is simply frightful 
in such places. Poultry -farms do better in neigh- 
borhoods where there are other poultry-farms, 
and fruit-growing in fruit-growing districts. Fully 
grown fruit-trees (orchards) can be bought, and 
this is far better than planting young orchards 
and waiting half of your life for them to develop. 
Your neighbors, whether progressive or other- 
wise, make a great difference to you. Broad- 

275 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

minded, helpful neighbors mean a great deal to 
you. Good roads make an enormous difference, 
that is, fairly good roads — which do not get soft 
in winter!'* 

And last of all. Miss R^ C, of Kennedy- 

ville, Maryland, sends this from her father's 
farm. Miss C. is a graduate of an agricultural 
college. 

"Agriculture for women, and suffrage, are still in 
the same class. I approve of both, but just how 
much good will come from either we must wait 
and see. I have done so many things on the 
farm that I know other women might do likewise. 
We criticise women as farmers, yet pass by the 
man who is a faker. If our women could only be 
taught to manage, how much would it not mean ? 
No work could be more trying than that done in 
the open air. When evening comes one is so apt 
to forget that her charm lies in her personal ap- 
pearance. I see no reason why women could not 
be successful with stock and truck, but when it 
comes to heavy work her strength is not great 
enough. 

"It is not my idea, when I say agriculture for 
women, to push men out of their jobs. There is 
room for all. Men seldom have patience or are 

276 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

thrifty enough to save on the small scale. A 
woman does. I have taken pigs that would have 
been killed because they were weak and raised 
them without trouble — only patience and a little 
fussing over. A calf supposedly dead was nursed 
along to health and is now a splendid cow. My 
father had sent for the skinner. I found the calf 
before he did. I have done much work with cat- 
tle and know it takes patience, which is indeed 
lacking in most men." 

From Mrs. H., former executive secretary of 
the Women's Land Army of America, now dis- 
banded, comes the following: 

"I would say without hesitation that the lines 
in which we found women most successful during 
the Land Army experiences were dairying (includ- 
ing all the operations, both heavy and Kght), truck- 
gardening, and fruit-picking. I believe that poul- 
try and bees should be added as offering splendid 
opportunities. I am experimenting with bees my- 
self, and it seems to me it provides a most suitable 
occupation for women. My work was primarily 
the placing of green labor — for which reason it is 
more difficult for me to judge of the possibilities of 
professional farming for women. But I believe 
that every year increases these possibilities and 

277. 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

offers better opportunities for women in agricul- 
ture, both in training and in making a real start. 

"In Missouri I met a woman whose occupation 
was the growing of small fruits, at which she was 
very successful. She had difficulty in securing 
seasonal labor. I have wished ever since that we 
might have introduced the idea of the woman 
fruit-farmer, employing in summer young women 
of the Land Army type — teachers, students, etc. 
— making a sort of summer community through 
the experiment, and herself superintending this 
work and carrying on the farm during the winter 
months without the extra help. I believe this sort 
of plan would be practical in other lines as well — 
truck-gardening or beekeeping, for example. 

"To sum up, I found the most promising avenues 
open to women to include the dairy, the poultry- 
farm, beekeeping, the truck-garden, the fruit-farm, 
and nursery or hot-house work. Untrained girls 
from our groups have done remarkably good work 
in these lines, and I know, of course, that trained 
women have excelled in them." 

The secretary of the Bureau of Vocational In- 
formation in New York, Miss Emma Hirth, one of 
our members, some two years ago made a canvass 
of women engaged in agricultural pursuits of many 

£78 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

kinds. Briefly summarized, the statements made 
by these farm women show the following as offer- 
ing special opportunities for women: beekeeping, 
dairying, horticulture (including both flowers and 
ornamental plants), truck-gardening (either general 
or with specialties such as asparagus, etc.), small 
fruits, hay, and seed. "Several women," writes 
Miss Hirth, *' strongly urged general farming; a 
number urged quite as strongly against it. One 
woman stated that she could never have made a 
success of general farming if she had not at the 
same time carried on one or two specialties which 
kept the general farm going during the lean years. 
In general, they point out the fact that the type 
of farm must depend to a considerable extent 
upon marketing conditions, som'ce of labor, sup- 
ply, and other factors which have little or nothing 
to do with the actual ability of the woman herself. 
The chances of success are good in all the lines of 
agriculture mentioned above." 

In that report, published in May, 1919, out of 
forty-six pages it is interesting to notice that three 
are devoted to library work, three to scientific 
work, seven to social work, while agriculture as a 
vocation for women has but a page and a half. 
More than a year has passed since this report was 

279 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

published, and even in that year a change has 
taken place in the attitude of individuals and of 
the public toward women on the land. 

As two concrete examples of this change, the 
number of women students at this college in whose 
halls we meet to-day has probably doubled within 
two years; and whereas, before the war, the office 
of the Woman's National Farm and Garden Asso- 
ciation found it difficult to place two women in a 
season in out-of-door work, in this spring and 
summer of 1920 we have placed fifty. With the 
number hitherto mentioned in this paper, com- 
pare also the varieties of out-of-door occupations 
practised by them to-day and the number of voca- 
tions for women in agriculture given by Presi- 
dent Butterfield in his admirable foreword to that 
part of the book, "Vocations for the Trained 
Woman," devoted to opportunities for women 
in agriculture. In this volume, issued by the 
Woman's Educational and Industrial Union of 
Boston in 1914, President Butterfield names poul- 
try-keeping, small-fruit growing, and floriculture 
as the lines in which women are most likely to 
succeed. The report of the subcommittee in Eng- 
land appointed to consider the employment of 
women in agriculture in England and Wales, pub- 

£80 



WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE 

lished in 1919, says concerning women in dairy- 
farming: "The committee are of the opinion that 
this industry specially needs the assistance of 
women in order to reach its fullest development. 
In particular, their assistance will be required for 
milking, rearing, and care of stock and cheese- 
making." 

The excellent pamphlet by Mrs. Roland Wilkins, 
"The Training and Employment of Educated 
Women in Horticulture and Agriculture," should 
be read by persons interested in the subject 
under discussion here. Published in 1916 by the 
Woman's Farm and Garden Union of London, it 
applies to the present, with the exception of figures 
concerning cost of training and so on, all of which, 
Mrs. Miles Benson writes me lately, should be 
multiplied by three. Mrs. Wilkins's impartial pen 
sets before one clearly the whole question of pros- 
pects for women in out-of-door occupations. She 
paints the disadvantages, the drawbacks of farm 
life and farm work for women, yet insists that in 
these lie for many women values that money can- 
not buy. Also, a thoroughly readable, authorita- 
tive, and informing pamphlet is that number of 
the "Journal of the Farmers' Club" (England) by 
Mr. T. C. Newham, called "The Future Position 

281 



A GARDEN NOTE-BOOK 

of Women in Agriculture." This may be obtained 
for sixpence from The Farmers Club, 2 Whitehall 
Court, London, S. W. 1. 

There is no need to speak of the circumstances 
which call us together here, of the reality of this 
work for women, of its fast-developing possibilities. 
In a remarkable recent sentence of Doctor Bailey's 
he gives it as his opinion that the past generation 
was that of the capitalist and financier; the present 
sees the emergence of labor; but the coming gen- 
eration shall behold the rise of the farmer. If this 
is so — and who can doubt the words of him who 
is at once the prophet and the priest of agriculture 
in America ? — the woman who farms or who is 
to-day studying the science of farming, has before 
her a future bright with promise. 



282 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Aconites, 120 

Aconitum Wilsonii, 109 

Adenophora, 111 

Agathea, 66, 207 

Ageratum, 114, 122; with gladioli, 
133 

Agriculture, opportunities for wo- 
men in, 263. if.; see Vocations 

Alder, swamp, 161 

Allium, white, 207 

Aloe, climbing, 198 

Altheas, 120, 121 

Alyssum, 114, 200 

Ampelopsis, 79 

Anchusas, 66 

Anenome, colors of, 108, 109 

Apple-trees, with lilac, 4, 5 

Arabis, double, 98 

Arbor- vitse, 160 

Arches, 16, 17, 43 

Arnold Arboretum, founder James 
Arnold, 169; establishment of, 
169-171; first importation of 
shrubs by, 172; library of, 173; 
location at Boston, 176; lilacs of, 
176 ff.; flowering shrubs, 180; 
fame of, 182, 183; a lesson for all 
gardeners, 175, 176, 181 

Artemisia, 114; placing of, 115; 
value of, in groups, 116, 117; color, 
117 

Asters, 107; with snowberries, 161 

Azalea, 21, 108, 180 

Backgrounds, 9, 45, 47, 179, 180; 
in Arnold Arboretum, 173-175; 
for ramblers, 17 

Bailey, "Cyclopedia of Horticul- 
ture," 241, 242 

Balsams, 111, 116; flesh pink, 117 



Barberry, 48, 149, 152, 153, 159; 
with saowberry, 164 

Barberry, Chinese, 159; Thunberg's, 
152, 164; vulgaris, 152; Wilson's, 
77, 78 

Beekeeping, specialists in, 262; op- 
portunities for women in, 269, 
277, 278 

Bergamot, 24 

Billbergia, 204, 205 

Bu-ch, white, 98 - 

Bleeding-heart, 14 

Borders, 24, 47-50; of 62, box, 60; 
of nut-trees, 63, 64; a variety of 
bloom for July, 64-66; gray- 
foliaged plants for, 200 

Brick, use of, in garden paths, 4, 5, 
48 

Buddleias, 114 

Bulbs, planting of, 3, 49, 50 

Cacti, 197, 200, 201 

Calendula, in group, 110, 197; yel- 
low, 117 

California, shrubbery for, 201, 224; 
gardens of, 193 ff.; varieties of 
flowers, 204-208; of fruit-trees, 
209, 210 

Campanula, perennial, 15, 16, 66; 
resetting of, 15, 16; ever-blooming, 
110, 111; with gladioli, 120; color 
effectiveness of, 99-102 

Campanula, lactiflora. 111; lati- 
folia, 117; lemoinei, 120; medium, 
99, 101; persicifolia, 90, 100 

Candytuft, lavender, 113; for late 
season, 122 

Cannas, 66, 249 

Canterbury bells, care of, 3; placing 
of, 20; used as border, 50, 51; 



285 



INDEX 



with delphinium, 99-101 ; Spanish 
variety, 187 

Gary, Mrs. William, list of "Don'ts" 
for exhibitions, 251-254; duties of 
committees, 254-256 

Catalogues, of general importance, 
214-221, 226, 227; English list, 
217, 230, 231; shrubs and trees, 
222-224; fruit-trees, 224, 225; of 
special flowers, 225, 234; of pe- 
onies, 225, 226; issued by women, 
227, 231, 232; of roses, 228; of 
dahlias, 229, 230; of gladioli, 231 

Cedar, 10; with rose, 160 

Chinese shrubs, 77, 79, 215 

Cimicifuga simplex, 113 

Clematis, climbing, 66, 139, 140; 
shrubbery, 140, 141; bluish, 141; 
new varieties, 141, 142; raised 
from seed, 143; with other flowers, 
143. 144 

Clematis, Cypris, 141, 142; Davi- 
diana, 139-143; Jackmanni, 140 
Lemoinei, 140; montana, 140 
paniculata, 139; tangutica, 140 
Ina Dwyer, 142, 143 

Color-chart, 103 

Color effects, for borders, 66, 67; 
in shades of blue, 66; in early 
spring flowers, 87; in green and 
white shrubbery, 92; in winter 
shrubbery, 156, 157 

Columbines, 65 

Conifers, 174 

Convallaria, 15 

Convolvulus mauritanicus, 200 

Coronado, California, garden at, 
195-203 

Cosmos, mauve, 109 

Cotoneasters, 149, 159 

Crab, flowering, 13, 180 

Creepers, 245 

Crocus, order of planting, 49, 86, 87 

Crocus, golden yellow, Julia Gulp, 
49; Kathleen Parlow, 87; Mi- 



kado, Ovidius, Pallas, 49; Scipio, 

9; Tilly Koenen, 49; Tomma- 

sinianus, 74 
Currants, flowering, 91 
Cypress, in Spanish gardens, 191, 

192; as background, 200 

Daffodil, kinds of, 11, 12; planting 
of, 6, 12; with tulips, 12, 49; un- 
der nut-trees, 64 

DaffodUs, Fiery Cross, 11; Great 
Warley, 11, 12; Loveliness, 11; 
Miss Willmott, 11; Salmonetta, 
11, 12; Sirdar, 11; Tresserve, 11; 
White Lady, 49 

Dahlias, 149. 150; dwarf, 121; for 
exhibits, 248; Mignon, 111; cata- 
logues of, 229, 230 

Dairy work, specialists in, 262; op- 
portunities for women in, 269, 
277-280; in England, 281 

Daisies, Shasta, 21 

Dasylirions, 201 

Dawson, Jackson, research work of, 
172, 173 

Delphiniums, care of, 13; planting 
of. 16, 21, 23, 24; treatment for 
blight, 21; annual, 114; color ef- 
fects with, 113, 165, 248; with 
campanula, 99, 100; with phlox, 
109, 110; with sweet peas, 100 

Dentaria diphylla, 65 

Deutzias, 4 

Dixwell, John James, 169 

Dogwood, Eiu"opean osier, 88 

Eden, Lady, " A Garden in Venice," 

quoted, 17, 18 
Egan, W. C, clematis of, 140, 216 
Ely, Mrs., cultural work of, ^6 
Emerson, George B., 167 
English garden, example of, 55 jf. 
Eryngium oliverianum, 66 
Escholtzias, 201 
Eucalyptus, 193 



286 



INDEX 



Evergreens, for background, 131, 
152, 160; catalogue of, 224 

Evonymus vegetus, 5, 160 

Exhibitions of flowers, 247-250; list 
of "Don'ts" for, 251-254; duties 
of committees, 254-256 

Farm and Garden Association, 266, 
270, 271 

Flax, 44, 45, 201 

Flower shows, 247, 248, 249 

Forget-me-not, 14, 37, 65; see 
Myosotis 

Foxglove, 102; yellow, with cam- 
panula, 99, 100 

Fruit farms, opportunities for wo- 
men workers on, 269, 270, 274, 
275, 277, 278 

Fruit-trees, 206, 209, 210; catalogues 
of, 224, 225 

Garden, a good spring planting for; 
plan of small-sized, 113-115; 
planting for winter, 151-166; plat- 
forms in, 4-6, 43, 59 

Garden clubs, organization of, 237- 
241; suggestions for activities, 
241^.; books for library of, 241, 
242; of Alma, Michigan, 246, 247; 
experimental work in, 247; flower 
show of, 247, 248, 249; member- 
ship in national societies, 249, 
250; rules for exhibitions, 251-256 

"Garden, The," quoted, 141, 155 

Geranium, planting of, 15, 249; care 
of, 118-120; salmon-pink, 118- 
120; scarlet, 206 

Gladioli, 117, 120; experiments in, 
127 /.; varieties, 129-138; group 
for border, 132; with other flow- 
ers, 133; grown from seedlings, 
134; lavender, 138; white, 134, 
136, 137; a collection of scarlets, 
138; catalogues of. 134, 136, 231, 
232 



Gladioli, Admiral Cervera, 129; 
Antoinette, 131, 133; Aristo- 
phane, 132; Assuerus, 133; Attrac- 
tion, 135; Baronne d'lvoly, 132; 
Baron Hulot, 215, 216; Beautfi 
de Juillet, 131, 136; Belle Al- 
liance, 131, 132; Bertrex, 133; 
Bleriot, 129; Carmelite, 129; 
Charles Berthier, 130; Chicago 
Salmon, 135; Chris, 137; Colibri, 
132; Colosse, 129; Deuil de St. 
Pierre, Desdemona, 129; Diane, 
130; Emile Antoine, 132; Evelyn 
Kirtland, 133; General Kuropat- 
kin, 131; Glorieta, 191, 192; 
Goliath, 137; Herada, 133; Il- 
linois, 137; Illuminator, 138; La 
Grandesse, 137; L'Innocence, 130, 
131; Liss, Loveliness, 137; Lu- 
tetia, 130, 131; Maine, 130; Ma- 
rocain, 129; Marquis de Canif, 
130; Martha Washington, 136; 
Montezuma, 139; Mrs. Campbell, 
134; Myrtle, 135; Nuee d'Orage, 
129; Owosso, 134; Platon, 130; 
Prince of India, 128, 129; Radium, 
137, 138; Regulus, 136; Rosella, 
137; Salvator Rosa, 139; Sans 
Pareil, 131; Schwaben, 135; Sou- 
boutai, 132; Tracy's Dawn, 137; 
Triton, 132; Utah, 136; Von 
Kemmerland, 137; Wisconsin, 136 

Grapes, planting of vines for border, 
48 

Grass, value of, 58, 173; Festuea, 199 

Gypsophila, 24 

Havemeyer, lilac collection, 88 

Hedges, evergreen, 5, 6 

Heliotrope, 101 

Hellebores, 65 

Heucheras, 20. 21, 102, 104; foliage 

of, 114 
Home gardens, field for women, 267, 

268, 277, 278 
Honeysuckles, 12, 77, 79; bush, 159 



287 



INDEX 



"Horticulture," weekly, 213 

Horticulture, opportunities for wo- 
men in, see Vocations 

Hyacinths, varieties of, 9, 10; plant- 
ing of, 10, 11; colors of, 10, 11 

Hyacinths, Adelaide Ristori, 87; 
Oranjeboven, 9; Katherine Spur- 
rell, 10; Mme. de Graff, 10; Flora 
Wilson, 10; Count Andrassy, 10; 
General van der Hey den, 10 

Hydrangeas, 30, 76, 91 

Iris, combinations in planting of, 6, 

37, 75; catalogues of, 225; deep 

violet, 6 
Iris, Mrs. Alan Gray, 37; Floren- 

tina, 34, 37; Germanica, 37; 

pallida, 101; pumila, 37; Storm 

King, 34, 37 
Ivy, 160, 161 

Japanese flowering cherries, 93 
Japanese quinca, 10, 86-88 
Japanese shrubs, 10, 79, 86-88, 93, 

164, 165, 182, 215 
Japanese wistaria, 207 
Japanese witch-hazel, winter bloom 

of, 164, 165, 182 
"Jardines de Espafia," 190 
Jarvis, C. D., quoted, 272 
Jekyll, Miss, 37; "Munstead Wood," 

garden of, 61-67 
Johnson, William Templeton, 196 
Juniperus sabina, 87, 88 

Kalmia, 174 

Kew Gardens, London, 178, 179 
Korea, importation of shrubs from, 
79 

Landscape designing, opportunities 
for women in, 267, 268; "An In- 
troduction to the Study of," 22 

Laurel, 174 

Lemoine, M., expert in clematis, 
140, 142 



Lilacs, 12, 13, 177; season of, 31; 
kinds of, 30-34; planting of, 14, 
34, 35; planting of, with other 
flowers, 36-38, 90, 91; cost of 
plants, 36; white lilacs, 33; pink- 
ish shades, 35, 77; blues, 36, 37, 
77; catalogues of, 223 

Lilacs, Antoine Buchner, 31, 35; 
Belle de Nancy, 77, 176; Bleu^tre, 
176; Cavour, 33; Claude Bernard, 
32; Coerulea, 32, 35-37; Danton, 
32, 35, 36; Diderot, 32, 33, 37; 
Emile Gentil, 35, 36, 77; Emile 
Lemoine, 77, Gilbert, 36; Gloire 
des Moulins, 176; Jarry Desloges, 
32, 35, 36; Lamartine, 33; Lud- 
wig Spaeth, 13, 35, 77; Marceau, 
35; Marechal Lannes, 31, 33, 35; 
Marie Le Graye, 77; Montaigne, 
36; Pasteur, 32, 33; Philemon, 77, 
176; President Fallieres, 32, 35, 
36; President Poincare, 32; Rouen, 
91; Syringa giraldi, 31; Syringa 
Milton, 33, 35; Syringa, pubes- 
cens, 14, 34, 37, 172, 176; Syringa 
Villosa, 34, 172, 176; Syringa 
sweginzowii, 77; Thunberg, 35; 
Toussaint, 77; Willmott, Miss, 33 

Lilies, planting of, 18, 19, 23, 24, 65, 
110 

Lilies, am-atum, 19; candidum, 23, 
24; elegans, 19; Madonna, 21; 
Nankeen, 18; regale, 18, 19, 24, 
110; speciosum, 165 

Lily-of-the-valley, 14, 15 

Lobelia, 66; sky-blue, 117 

Locusts, 144 

Lopezia, 204 

Loniceras, 177 

Lupines, 101 

Lycoris, 99, 115, 117 

Lythnun roseum, 80, 81 

Mahonia, 91, 164 
Marsh marigolds, 88 
Mathern Place, 55-59 



S88 



INDEX 



Meadow-sweet, double, 66 
Mertensia lanceolata, 8; virginica, 37 
Mignonette, 102; spiral, 113 
Mulleins, 66 

Munstead Wood, garden of, 61-67 
Myosotis, planting of, with lilacs, 

15, 36, 37; in borders, 67, 58 
Myrtle, 49 

Narcissus, 8, 46, 49, 64 

Narcissus, Ariadne, 8; cernuus, 64; 

Poeticus, 46; Sir Watkin, 49; 

White Lady, 49 
Nut-trees, used as borders, 61-67 

Olmsted, Frederick Law, 171 
Orange Pippins, 4 
Oranges, mock, 30, 90 

Paths, bordered with tulips, 47, 48; 
of grass, 58 

Peas, sweet, 100 

Pendleton, Miss Isabella, color- 
chart of, 103, 104 

Pennsylvania farmhouses, charm of, 
46/. 

Peonies, planting of, 93, 94; vari- 
eties of, 95, 96, 97, 98; Mrs. 
Harding's list of, 97; catalogues 
of, 225, 226; American Peony 
Society, 249 

Peonies, Alexandre Dumas, 97; 
Baroness Schroeder, 97; Emile 
Lemoine, 97; Galle, 95; Ginette, 
96; Glorious, 97; Jules Elie, 95; 
La F6e, 97; Lady Alexandra Duff, 
96; Le Synge, 97; Milton Hill, 97; 
Solange, 97; Therese, 95, 97, 98; 
Walter Faxon, 97, 98 

Perennials, resetting of, 100, 101 

Pergola, misuse of, 174, 175 

Pemettya mucronata, 161, 164 

Petunias, 21, 102; violet, 113, 114, 
121, 122; white. 111; Spanish, 187 

Philadelphus, 90, 91 



Phloxes, season of bloom, 21; with 
tulips, 43, 44; with delphiniums, 

110, 111; with gladioli, 133; lav- 
ender, 13, 109, 110; white. 111, 
117, 120; second bloom of, 117; 
catalogues of, 225 

Phloxes, Antonin Mercie, 110, 117; 
Arendsii, 43, 44; Elizabeth Camp- 
bell, 110, 117, 133; Eugene Dan- 
zanvilliers, 109; Mme. Paul Du- 
trie, 80; Mrs. Jenkins, 117, 120; 
Tapis Blanc, 110 

Physostegia, 117 

Poplars, as background, 114, 115 

Poppies, Oriental, 101; double rose- 
pink, 115; Matilija, 199 

Poultry farming, specialists in, 262; 
opportunities in, 269, 275, 277, 
278, 279, 280 

Primroses, 65 

Privet, 20, 66, 116, 117, 159 

Puschkinia, 6, 8 

Pyrethums, 102 

Quince, 10, 86-88 

Ramblers, placing of, 16-22, 248; 
backgrounds for, 17, 248; crim- 
son, planted with salvia, 21, 22; 
dwarf, 16, 20, 21; pink, 13, 16, 17, 
113, 114; white, 113; dwarf, 121 

Ramblers, Annchen Mueller, 20; 
Aviateur Bleriot, 111; Ellen Poul- 
son, 20, 113; Excelsa, 16, 111; 
Ghiselaine de Feligonde, 19, 20, 

111, 112; Lady Gay, 16, 17, 114; 
Louise Welter, 113; Paradise, 16, 
17; Yvonne Rabier, 113 

Resetting, of campanula, 16; of per- 
ennials, 100, 101 
Rhododendrons, 174 
"Rhododendrons," Millais, 81 
Ribbon-grass, 14 

Robert, Mrs., garden of, 196, 197 
Roekrs, Julius, 221 



289 



INDEX 



Roses, 16-22, 25, 113, 114, 121; 
winter berries of, 159, 160; gar- 
dens of, 25, 26, 228; catalogues of, 
228; American Rose Society, 249 

Roses, Cherokee, 209; CMteau de 
Clos Vougeot, 25; Druschki, 25; 
Lady Ashtown, 25; Los Angeles, 
18, 25; ramblers, 16-22, 113, 114, 
121 

Rue, 66 

Rusi&ol, Santiago, painter of Span- 
ish gardens, 187, 190-194 

Salvia, planting of, with ramblers, 
21-23, 81, 111, 114-116; with 
other flowers, 115, 116 

Salvia azurea, 115, 120; farinacea, 
81, 114; sclarea, 23, 116; virgata, 
21-23, 81, 111 

Santolina, 200 

Sargent, Professor, first director of 
Arnold Arboretum, 170, 171, 175 

Scilla campanula ta, 89; sibirica, 87 

Seasons of bloom, chart of, 103 

Sedums, 201 

Seed catalogues, see Catalogues 

Sessions, Miss Kate, garden de- 
signed by, 198 

Shrubbery, choice varieties of, 77- 
81; poor grouping of, 88, 89; good 
groupmg of, 89-92, 201-203, 151- 
164; importance of, 82, 179, 180; 
for autumn, 149, 150; for winter, 
151-164; catalogues of, 222/. 

Smith, Mrs. Edith, quoted, 274, 275 

Snake-root, 113 

Snapdragons, 66 

Snowberries, 159, 161, 162; with 
asters, 161; with barberry, 164 

Snowdrops, 74 

Solomon's seal, 65 

Spanish gardens, 187-194 

Spiderwort, 66 

Spiraea arguta, 30; astilbe, 88, 89; 
Thunbergii, 4, 12; Vanhoutteii, 17, 
91; catalogue of, 223 



Spruce, 174 

Stachys, 102, 111, 114 

Stocks, 102, 114 

Strawberry, 17, 18; John H. Cook, 

18; beach, 201 
Strelitzia, 204, 205 
Streptosolen, 199, 208 
Sunflower, Sutton's Primrose Queen, 

115 
Sutton's Silene, 111 
Sweet peas, with delphinium, 100 
Sweet-william, dark red, 102 
Syringas, varieties of, 32-37, 77, 

172. 176; see Lilacs 

Thalictrum glaucum, 24 

Tiarella, 65 

Tipping, Mr. W., English garden of, 
56-59 

Trees, flowering, 180, 181; catalogues 
of, 22; authoritative book on, 171 

Triteleia uniflora, 65 

Trollius, 197 

Truck-gardening, opportunities for 
women in, 277-279 

Trumpet-vine, 199 

Tulip, planting of, 11, 13, 14, 41-46; 
with crab, 13; with lilacs, 36, 37; 
beds of, 43, 45; with phlox, 43, 
44; as border to path, 47; early, 
49; for flower shows, 248; pink, 
13 

Tulips, Avis Kennicott, 13; Blue 
Celeste, 37, 43; Breeder, 43; Clara 
Butt, 14, 44, 45; Cottage, 43; 
Darwin, 37, 43, 89, 91, 107; 
Dream, 44; Ewbank, 36; Fairy 
Queen, 37; Flamingo, 44; Flava, 
13; Fred Moore, 49; Illuminator, 
11, 98; Inglescombe, 13; Kauf- 
manniana, 6; Lantern, 44; Pusch- 
kmia, 6, 8; Miss Willmott, 13; 
Mrs. Kerrell, 13, 89; Nora Ware, 
45; retroflexa, 13, 37; Safrano, 49; 
White Hawk, 49 



290 



INDEX 



Turf, beauty in use of, 58, 144, 145, 
173 

Valerian, planting of, 15; season of 
bloom, 112 

Verbenas, 102, 201 

Viburnums, 152; varieties with ber- 
ries that change color, 158 

Viburnums Carlesii, 77, 177; opulus, 
77 

Vines, clematis, 66, 139, 140; ever- 
green, 160, 161; grape, 48 

Violet, white, 9; dogtooth, 65 

Vocations for women in agriculture, 
animal husbandry, 270, 271; de- 
signing home gardens, 267, 268, 
274; managing, 266, 267; specializ- 
ing, 262, 263, 269, 274, 275, 277; 
teaching, 268, 271, 272, 274; com- 
bined with secretarial work, 268, 
269; on fruit farms, 269, 270, 274, 
275 

" Vocations for the Trained Woman," 
Butterfield, 280 

Water, running, in garden, 45, 190, 

191 
Webb, Itliss, quoted, 263-265 



Wilson, E. H., botanical explorer 
for Arnold Arboretiun, 152, 172 

Winter garden, shrubs for, 151 jf.; 
planting list for, 162 

Wistaria, lavender, 42 

Woman's National Farm and Garden 
Association, 260, 280; national 
office of, 261 ; experts among mem- 
bers, 262, 263, 266, 267; war work 
of, 265, 266; scholarships of, 265, 
266 

W^omen, opportimities for, in agri- 
culture, 263; qualifications for 
farm work, 264, 265, 267; see Vo- 
cations 

Women's Land Army, 260, 277, 278 

"Woodland Garden," Jekyll, 62-64 

Yarrow, 24 

Yew, 17 

Yucca, 66, 201, 202 

Zenobia, 164 

Zinnias, buff, 114; pale pink, 115; 
Isabellina, 114; white, 102; flame, 
117; varieties, 118; late blooming, 
122 



291 















* 











N^ -It ,— - "^ r- 




